111.
Athenian envoys
‘Some diversion of the kind you speak of you may one day
experience, only to learn, as others have done, that the Athenians never
once yet withdrew from a siege for fear of any.
[2]
But we are struck by the fact, that after saying you would consult for
the safety of your country, in all this discussion you have mentioned
nothing which men might trust in and think to be saved by.
Your strongest arguments depend upon hope and the future, and your
actual resources are too scanty, as compared with those arrayed against
you, for you to come out victorious.
You will therefore show great blindness of judgment, unless, after
allowing us to retire, you can find some counsel more prudent than this.
[3]
You will surely not be caught by that idea of disgrace, which in
dangers that are disgraceful, and at the same time too plain to be
mistaken, proves so fatal to mankind; since in too many cases the very men that have their eyes perfectly
open to what they are rushing into, let the thing called disgrace, by
the mere influence of a seductive name, lead them on to a point at which
they become so enslaved by the phrase as in fact to fall willfully into
hopeless disaster, and incur disgrace more disgraceful as the companion
of error, than when it comes as the result of misfortune.
[4]
This, if you are well advised, you will guard against; and you will not think it dishonorable to submit to the greatest city
in Hellas, when it makes you the moderate offer of becoming its
tributary ally, without ceasing to enjoy the country that belongs to
you; nor when you have the choice given you between war and security, will
you be so blinded as to choose the worse.
And it is certain that those who do not yield to their equals, who keep
terms with their superiors, and are moderate towards their inferiors, on
the whole succeed best.
[5]
Think over the matter, therefore, after our withdrawal, and reflect
once and again that it is for your country that you are consulting, that
you have not more than one, and that upon this one deliberation depends
its prosperity or ruin.’
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References (27 total)
- Commentary references to this page
(5):
- E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 2, 2.61
- E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 7, 7.47
- C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 4, CHAPTER XVIII
- C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 4, CHAPTER LXI
- C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 4, CHAPTER IX
- Cross-references to this page
(4):
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 1.3.1
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 1.pos=2.2
- William Watson Goodwin, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb, Chapter IV
- William Watson Goodwin, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb, Chapter VI
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(18):
- LSJ, ἀλογ-ία
- LSJ, ἀνεπι-στήμων
- LSJ, ἀνήκεστος
- LSJ, ἔστω
- LSJ, ἔτι
- LSJ, ἐνθυ_μ-έομαι
- LSJ, ἐπι-σπάω
- LSJ, φι^λονι_κ-έω
- LSJ, ἰσχυ_ρός
- LSJ, μέλλω
- LSJ, περιγίγνομαι
- LSJ, προορ-άω
- LSJ, προσφέρω
- LSJ, προσλαμβάνω
- LSJ, ῥῆμα
- LSJ, σώφρων
- LSJ, σῴζω
- LSJ, ὑποτελ-ής
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