79.
'You may perhaps disguise your cowardice under the pretence of impartiality; you may1 balance between us and the invaders, and plead that you have an alliance with the Athenians. But that alliance was made on the supposition that you were invaded by an enemy, not against a friend; and you promised to assist the Athenians if they were wronged by others, not when, as now, they are doing wrong themselves.
[2]
Are the Rhegians who are Chalcidians so very anxious to join in the restoration of their Leontine kinsmen2? And yet how monstrous that they, suspecting the real meaning of this plausible claim, should display a prudence for which they can give no reason; and that you, who have every reason for a like prudence, should be eager to assist your natural enemies, and to conspire with them for the destruction of those who by a higher law are your still more natural kinsmen.
[3]
This should not be. You must make a stand against them. And do not be afraid of their armament. There is no danger if we hold together; the danger is in disunion, and they want to disunite us. Even when they engaged with our unaided forces3, and defeated us in battle, they failed in their main purpose, and quickly retired.
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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