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38.
But the Athenians see this as I tell you, and
as I have reason to know are looking after their possessions at home, while
persons here invent stories that neither are true nor ever will be.
[2]
Nor is this the first time that I see these persons, when they cannot
resort to deeds, trying by such stories and by others even more abominable
to frighten your people and get into their hands the government: it is what
I see always.
And I cannot help fearing that trying so often they may one day succeed,
and that we, as long as we do not feel the smart, may prove too weak for the
task of prevention, or, when the offenders are known, of pursuit.
[3]
The result is that our city is rarely at rest, but is subject to constant
troubles and to contests as frequent against herself as against the enemy,
not to speak of occasional tyrannies and infamous cabals.
[4]
However, I will try, if you will support me, to let nothing of this happen
in our time, by gaining you, the many, and by chastising the authors of such
machinations, not merely when they are caught in the act—a
difficult feat to accomplish—but also for what they have the wish
though not the power to do; as is necessary to punish an enemy not only for what he does, but also
beforehand for what he intends to do, if the first to relax precaution would
not be also the first to suffer.
I shall also reprove, watch, and on occasion warn the few—the
most effectual way, in my opinion, of turning them from their evil courses.
[5]
And after all, as I have often asked—What would you have, young
men?
Would you hold office at once?
The law forbids it, a law enacted rather because you are not competent than
to disgrace you when competent.
Meanwhile you would not be on a legal equality with the many!
But how can it be right that citizens of the same state should be held
unworthy of the same privileges?
Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War. London, J. M. Dent; New York, E. P. Dutton. 1910.
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References (24 total)
- Commentary references to this page (4):
- Cross-references to this page
(6):
- Herbert Weir Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges, THE VERB: VOICES
- Herbert Weir Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges, PARTICLES
- 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
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 3.2.4
- William Watson Goodwin, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb, Chapter III
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(14):
- LSJ, δῆτα
- LSJ, ἄν
- LSJ, ἀποτρέπ-ω
- LSJ, ἐπιτυγχάνω
- LSJ, ἰσονομ-έομαι
- LSJ, λογοποι-έω
- LSJ, ὀλίγος
- LSJ, ὀλι^γ-άκι^ς
- LSJ, οὐ
- LSJ, πειράω
- LSJ, προα^μυνομαι
- LSJ, προφυλ-άσσω
- LSJ, σκέπ-τομαι
- LSJ, τοιγάρ
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