with independent action? (8) Again, you pick
quarrels without consulting your allies, and lead them against those
whom you account enemies; so that in many cases, with all their vaunted
independence, they are forced to march against their greatest friends;
and, what is still more opposed to independence than all else, you
are for ever setting up here your decarchies and there your thirty
commissioners, and your chief aim in appointing these officers and
governors seems to be, not that they should fulfil their office and
govern legally, but that they should be able to keep the cities under
their heels by sheer force. So that it looks as if you delighted in
despotisms rather than free constitutions. Let us go back to the date
(9) at which the Persian king enjoined the independence of the states.
At that time you made no secret of your conviction that the Thebans, if
they did not suffer each state to govern itself and to use the laws
of its own choice, would be failing to act in the spirit of the king's
rescript. But no sooner had you got hold of Cadmeia than you would not
suffer the Thebans themselves to be independent. Now, if the maintenance
of friendship be an object, it is no use for people to claim justice
from others while they themselves are doing all they can to prove the
selfishness of their aims."

(7) For the political views of Autocles, see Curtius, "H. G." iv. 387,
v. 94 (Eng. tr.); see also Grote, "H. G." x. 225.

(8) Or, "what consistency is there between these precepts of yours and
political independence?"

(9) Sixteen years before--B.C. 387. See "Pol. Lac." xiv. 5.

These remarks were received in absolute silence, yet in the hearts of
those who were annoyed with Lacedaemon they stirred pleasure. After
Autocles spoke Callistratus: "Trespasses, men of Lacedaemon, have been
committed on both sides, yours and ours, I am free to confess; but still
it is not my view that because a man has done wrong we can never again
have dealings with him. Experience tells me that no man can go very far
without a slip, and it seems to me that sometimes the transgressor by
reason of his transgression becomes more tractable, especially if he be
chastened through the error he has committed, as has been the case with
us. And so on your own case I see that ungenerous acts have sometimes
reaped their own proper reward: blow has been met by counter-blow; and
as a specimen I take the seizure of the Cadmeia in Thebes. To