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12.
'What trust then could we repose in such a friendship or such a freedom as this?
The1 civility which we showed to one another was at variance with our real feelings.
They courted us in time of war because they were afraid of us, and we in time of peace
paid a like attention to them.
And the faith which is generally assured by mutual good-will had with us no other bond
but mutual fear; from fear, and not from love, we were constrained to maintain the
alliance, and which ever of us first thought that he could safely venture would
assuredly have been the first to break it.
[2]
And therefore if any one imagines that we do wrong in striking first, because they
delay the blow which we dread, and thinks that we should wait and make quite sure of
their intentions, he is mistaken.
[3]
If we were really on an equality with them and in a position to counteract their
designs and imitate their threatening attitude, how was it consistent with this equality
that we had still to be at their mercy?
The power of attack is always in their hands, and the power of anticipating attack
should always be in ours.
1 It was not mutual love but mutual fear which united us. We struck first because we were not on an equality with them; we were always liable to be attacked, and were therefore at their mercy.
Thucydides translated into English; with introduction, marginal analysis, notes, and indices. Volume 1. Thucydides. Benjamin Jowett. translator. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1881.
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