ainst our country we will sail
against theirs, and it will then be found that the desolation of
the whole of Attica is not the same as that of even a fraction of
Peloponnese; for they will not be able to supply the deficiency except
by a battle, while we have plenty of land both on the islands and the
continent. The rule of the sea is indeed a great matter. Consider for
a moment. Suppose that we were islanders; can you conceive a more
impregnable position? Well, this in future should, as far as possible,
be our conception of our position. Dismissing all thought of our land
and houses, we must vigilantly guard the sea and the city. No irritation
that we may feel for the former must provoke us to a battle with the
numerical superiority of the Peloponnesians. A victory would only be
succeeded by another battle against the same superiority: a reverse
involves the loss of our allies, the source of our strength, who will
not remain quiet a day after we become unable to march against them. We
must cry not over the loss of houses and land but of men's lives; since
houses and land do not gain men, but men them. And if I had thought that
I could persuade you, I would have bid you go out and lay them waste
with your own hands, and show the Peloponnesians that this at any rate
will not make you submit.

"I have many other reasons to hope for a favourable issue, if you can
consent not to combine schemes of fresh conquest with the conduct of
the war, and will abstain from wilfully involving yourselves in other
dangers; indeed, I am more afraid of our own blunders than of the
enemy's devices. But these matters shall be explained in another speech,
as events require; for the present dismiss these men with the answer
that we will allow Megara the use of our market and harbours, when the
Lacedaemonians suspend their alien acts in favour of us and our allies,
there being nothing in the treaty to prevent either one or the other:
that we will leave the cities independent, if independent we found them
when we made the treaty, and when the Lacedaemonians grant to their
cities an independence not involving subservience to Lacedaemonian
interests, but such as each severally may desire: that we are willing
to give the legal satisfaction which our agreements specify, and that we
shall not commence hostilities, but shall resist those who do commence
them. This is an answer agreeable at once to the rights and the dignity
of Athens. It must be thoro