previous next
47. "Consider also, if you follow the advice of Cleon, how much you shall offend likewise in this other point. [2] For in all your cities the commonalty are now your friends and either revolt not with the few, or, if they be compelled to it by force, they presently turn enemies to them that caused the revolt; whereby when you go to war, you have the commons of the adverse city on your side. [3] But if you shall destroy the commonalty of the Mytilenaeans, which did neither partake of the revolt and as soon as they were armed presently delivered the city into your hands, you shall first do unjustly to kill such as have done you service, and you shall effect a work besides which the great men do everywhere most desire. For when they have made a city to revolt, they shall have the people presently on their side, you having foreshown them by the example that both the guilty and not guilty must undergo the same punishment. [4] Whereas indeed, though they were guilty, yet we ought to dissemble it, to the end that the only party now our friend may not become our enemy. [5] And for the assuring of our dominion, I think it far more profitable voluntarily to put up an injury than justly to destroy such as we should not. And that same both justice and profit of revenge, alleged by Cleon, can never possibly be found together in the same thing.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

load focus Notes (E.C. Marchant, 1909)
load focus Notes (Charles F. Smith, 1894)
load focus English (Benjamin Jowett, 1881)
load focus Greek (1942)
load focus English (1910)
hide References (21 total)
  • Commentary references to this page (12):
    • Charles F. Smith, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 3, 3.21
    • Charles F. Smith, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 3, 3.39
    • Charles F. Smith, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 3, 3.45
    • Charles F. Smith, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 3, 3.46
    • Charles F. Smith, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 3, 3.48
    • Charles F. Smith, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 3, 3.62
    • Charles F. Smith, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 3, 3.78
    • C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 4, CHAPTER XVII
    • C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 4, CHAPTER LV
    • C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 4, CHAPTER LXII
    • Charles D. Morris, Commentary on Thucydides Book 1, 1.39
    • Charles D. Morris, Commentary on Thucydides Book 1, 1.58
  • Cross-references to this page (2):
    • Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 3.2.4
    • Sir Richard C. Jebb, Selections from the Attic Orators, 1.33
  • Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page (7):
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: