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89.
‘I am forced first to speak to you
of the prejudice with which I am regarded, in order that suspicion may not
make you disinclined to listen to me upon public matters.
[2]
The connection with you as your Proxeni, which the ancestors of our family
by reason of some discontent renounced, I personally tried to renew by my
good offices towards you, in particular upon the occasion of the disaster at
Pylos.
But although I maintained this friendly attitude, you yet chose to
negotiate the peace with the Athenians through my enemies, and thus to
strengthen them and to discredit me.
[3]
You had therefore no right to complain if I turned to the Mantineans and
Argives, and seized other occasions of thwarting and injuring you; and the time has now come when those among you, who in the bitterness of
the moment may have been then unfairly angry with me, should look at the
matter in its true light, and take a different view.
Those again who judged me unfavourably, because I leaned rather to the side
of the commons, must not think that their dislike is any better founded.
[4]
We have always been hostile to tyrants, and all who oppose arbitrary power
are called commons; hence we continued to act as leaders of the multitude; besides which, as democracy was the government of the city, it was
necessary in most things to conform to established conditions.
[5]
However, we endeavoured to be more moderate than the licentious temper of
the times; and while there were others, formerly as now, who tried to lead the
multitude astray, the same who banished me,
[6]
our party was that of the whole people, our creed being to do our part in
preserving the form of government under which the city enjoyed the utmost
greatness and freedom, and which we had found existing.
As for democracy, the men of sense among us knew what it was, and I perhaps
as well as any, as I have the more cause to complain of it; but there is nothing new to be said of a patent
absurdity—meanwhile we did not think it safe to alter it under the
pressure of your hostility.
Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War. London, J. M. Dent; New York, E. P. Dutton. 1910.
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References (38 total)
- Commentary references to this page
(9):
- E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 2, 2.49
- T. G. Tucker, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 8, 8.47
- T. G. Tucker, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 8, 8.48
- T. G. Tucker, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 8, 8.89
- C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 4, CHAPTER LXXXVII
- C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 5, 5.43
- C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 5, 5.7
- W. Walter Merry, James Riddell, D. B. Monro, Commentary on the Odyssey (1886), 3.205
- E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides Book 1, 1.18
- Cross-references to this page
(8):
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 1.3.1
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 1.4.2
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 3.6.1
- A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), HOSPI´TIUM
- A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), XENELA´SIA
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), CA´TANA
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), CYLLE´NE
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), ETRU´RIA
- Cross-references in notes to this page
(1):
- Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Thuc. 8.65
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(20):
- LSJ, δημοκρα^τ-ία
- LSJ, ἀκρο-άομαι
- LSJ, ἀναλαμβάνω
- LSJ, ἀπεῖπον
- LSJ, διατελ-έω
- LSJ, δυ^ναστ-εύω
- LSJ, ἐξάγω
- LSJ, ἐχθρός
- LSJ, μέτριος
- LSJ, ὁ
- LSJ, ὁμολογ-έω
- LSJ, οὕτως
- LSJ, περιτίθημι
- LSJ, πρόσκειμαι
- LSJ, προξεν-ία
- LSJ, προ-στα^σία
- LSJ, συμπαρα-μένω
- LSJ, σχῆμα
- LSJ, ὕπ-οπτος
- LSJ, χείρων
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