Note 587 — Chapter XLV · PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONFEDERACY UNDER ATHENS AS HEAD. — FIRST FORMATION AND RAPID EXPANSION OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE.

The speech of the Athenian envoy at Sparta, a little before the Peloponnesian war, sets forth the growth of the Athenian empire, in the main, with perfect justice (Thucyd. i, 75, 76). He admits and even exaggerates its unpopularity, but shows that such unpopularity was, to a great extent, and certainly as to its first origin, unavoidable as well as undeserved. He of course, as might be supposed, omits those other proceedings by which Athens had herself aggravated it.

Καὶ γὰρ αὐτὴν τήνδε (τὴν ἀρχὴν) ἐλάβομεν οὐ βιασάμενοι ... ἐξ αὐτοῦ δὲ τοῦ ἔργου κατηναγκάσθημεν τὸ πρῶτον προαγαγεῖν αὐτὴν ἐς τόδε, μάλιστα μὲν ὑπὸ δέους, ἔπειτα δὲ καὶ τιμῆς, ὕστερον καὶ ὠφελείας. Καὶ οὐκ ἀσφαλὲς ἔτι ἐδόκει εἶναι τοῖς πολλοῖς ἀπηχθημένους, καί τινων καὶ ἤδη ἀποστάντων κεχειρωμένων, ὑμῶν τε ἡμῖν οὐκέτι ὁμοίως φίλων, ἀλλ’ ὑπόπτων καὶ διαφόρων ὄντων, ἀνέντας κινδυνεύειν· καὶ γὰρ ἂν αἱ ἀποστάσεις πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἐγίγνοντο· πᾶσι δὲ ἀνεπίφθονον τὰ ξυμφέροντα τῶν μεγίστων πέρι κινδύνων εὖ τίθεσθαι.

The whole speech well merits attentive study: compare also the speech of Periklês at Athens, in the second year of the Peloponnesian war (Thucyd. ii, 63).