75.
Considering, Lacedaemonians, the energy and sagacity which we then displayed, do we
deserve1 to be so bitterly hated by the other Hellenes merely because we have an empire?
[2]
That empire was not acquired 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.
[3]
The subsequent development of our power was originally forced upon us by circumstances; fear was our first motive; afterwards honour, and then interest stepped in.
[4]
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.
[5]
And no man is to be reproached who seizes every possible advantage when the danger is
so great.
1 Why should they be hated for having saved Hellas? Their empire was not a usurpation, but the growth of circumstances.
Thucydides translated into English; with introduction, marginal analysis, notes, and indices. Volume 1. Thucydides. Benjamin Jowett. translator. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1881.
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