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19.
The Lacedaemonians accordingly invite you to
make a treaty and to end the war, and offer peace and alliance and the most
friendly and intimate relations in every way and on every occasion between
us; and in return ask for the men on the island, thinking it better for both
parties not to stand out the end, on the chance of some favorable accident
enabling the men to force their way out, or of their being compelled to
succumb under the pressure of blockade.
[2]
Indeed if great enmities are ever to be really settled, we think it will
be, not by the system of revenge and military success, and by forcing an
opponent to swear to a treaty to his disadvantage, but when the more
fortunate combatant waives these his privileges, to be guided by gentler
feelings, conquers his rival in generosity, and accords peace on more
moderate conditions than he expected.
[3]
From that moment, instead of the debt of revenge which violence must
entail, his adversary owes a debt of generosity to be paid in kind, and is
inclined by honor to stand to his agreement.
[4]
And men oftener act in this manner towards their greatest enemies than
where the quarrel is of less importance; they are also by nature as glad to give way to those who first yield to
them, as they are apt to be provoked by arrogance to risks condemned by
their own judgment.
Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War. London, J. M. Dent; New York, E. P. Dutton. 1910.
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(21):
- LSJ, ἀνθησσάομαι
- LSJ, ἀνταιτέω
- LSJ, ἀντα^μύνομαι
- LSJ, ἀνταπο-δίδωμι
- LSJ, ἀρετή
- LSJ, διά-λυ^σις
- LSJ, διαλύω
- LSJ, ἔχθρ-α
- LSJ, ἐπιεικ-ής
- LSJ, ἐπικρα^τ-έω
- LSJ, γνώμ-η
- LSJ, ἡδονή
- LSJ, μέτριος
- LSJ, οἰκειότης
- LSJ, πάρειμι
- LSJ, παρατυγχάνω
- LSJ, προκαλ-έω
- LSJ, προσδέχομαι
- LSJ, συμβαίνω
- LSJ, συναλλ-άσσω
- LSJ, ὑπεραυχ-έω
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