not decline the burdens of empire and still expect to share
its honours. You should remember also that what you are fighting against
is not merely slavery as an exchange for independence, but also loss
of empire and danger from the animosities incurred in its exercise.
Besides, to recede is no longer possible, if indeed any of you in the
alarm of the moment has become enamoured of the honesty of such an
unambitious part. For what you hold is, to speak somewhat plainly, a
tyranny; to take it perhaps was wrong, but to let it go is unsafe. And
men of these retiring views, making converts of others, would quickly
ruin a state; indeed the result would be the same if they could live
independent by themselves; for the retiring and unambitious are
never secure without vigorous protectors at their side; in fine, such
qualities are useless to an imperial city, though they may help a
dependency to an unmolested servitude.

"But you must not be seduced by citizens like these or angry with
me--who, if I voted for war, only did as you did yourselves--in spite of
the enemy having invaded your country and done what you could be
certain that he would do, if you refused to comply with his demands; and
although besides what we counted for, the plague has come upon us--the
only point indeed at which our calculation has been at fault. It is
this, I know, that has had a large share in making me more unpopular
than I should otherwise have been--quite undeservedly, unless you are
also prepared to give me the credit of any success with which chance may
present you. Besides, the hand of heaven must be borne with resignation,
that of the enemy with fortitude; this was the old way at Athens, and do
not you prevent it being so still. Remember, too, that if your country
has the greatest name in all the world, it is because she never bent
before disaster; because she has expended more life and effort in war
than any other city, and has won for herself a power greater than
any hitherto known, the memory of which will descend to the latest
posterity; even if now, in obedience to the general law of decay, we
should ever be forced to yield, still it will be remembered that we held
rule over more Hellenes than any other Hellenic state, that we sustained
the greatest wars against their united or separate powers, and inhabited
a city unrivalled by any other in resources or magnitude. These glories
may incur the censure of the slow and unambitious; but in the