r 52 SPEECH OF THE ATHENIANS [l to embark because our ruin was already complete, it would have been useless for you with your weak navy to fight at sea, but everything would have gone quietly just as the Persian desired. '75 'Considering, Lacedaemonians, the energy and sagacity ^ Why should they be which wc then displayed, do we deserve hated for having saved to be SO bitterly hated by the other c as. lety empire j^gUgngg merely because we have an ivas not a usurpation, _ _ but the growth of cir- empire ? That empire was not acquired cunistanccs. by force ; but you would not stay and make an end of the Barbarian, and the allies came of their own accord and asked us to be their leaders. The sub- sequent development of our power was originally forced upon us by circumstances ; fear was our first motive ; after- wards honour, and then interest stepped in. And when we had incurred the hatred of most of our allies ; when some of them had already revolted and been subjugated, and you were no longer the friends to us which you once had been, but suspicious and ill-disposed, how could we without great risk relax our hold ? For the cities as fast as they fell away from us would have gone over to you. And no man is to be reproached who seizes every possible ad- vantage when the danger is so great. 76 'At all events, Lacedaemonians, we may retort that you , The Lacedaemonians in the^e xercise of your supremacy ^n- would have been worse a ge the cities of Peloponnesus to suit ihan they were. your own views ; and that if you, and not we, had persevered in the command of the allies long enough to be hated, you would have been quite as intoler- able to them as we are, and would have been compelled, for the sake of your own safety, to rule with a strong B.C. 432. hand. An empire was offered to us : can you wonder ' '■ that, acting as human nature always will, we accepted it and refused to give it up again, constrained by three all- powerful motives, honour, fear, interest ? We are not the first who have aspired to rule ; the world has ever held that the weaker must be kept down by the stronger. And
