66.
"And for an argument that we did not this as enemies, we did harm to no man but proclaimed that if any man were willing to have the city governed after the common form of all Boeotia, he should come to us.
[2]
And you came willingly at first and were quiet.
But afterwards, when you knew we were but few, though we might seem to have done somewhat more than was fit to do without the consent of your multitude, you did not by us as we did by you, first innovate nothing in fact and then with words persuade us to go forth again, but contrary to the composition assaulted us.
And for those men you slew in the affray, we grieve not so much;
for they suffered by a kind of law.
But to kill those that held up their hands for mercy, whom taken alive you afterwards had promised to spare, was not this a horrible cruelty?
[3]
You committed in this business three crimes, one in the neck of another;
first, the breach of the composition;
then, the death that followed of our men;
and thirdly, the falsifying of your promise to save them if we did no hurt to anything of yours in the fields.
And yet you say that we are the transgressors and that you for your parts deserve not to undergo a judgment.
But it is otherwise.
And if these men judge aright, you shall be punished now for all your crimes at once.
The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. Thucydides. Thomas Hobbes. translator. London. Bohn. 1843.
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