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33.
Now there are many reasons why in the event
of your compliance you will congratulate yourselves on this request having
been made to you.
First, because your assistance will be rendered to a power which, herself
inoffensive, is a victim to the injustice of others. Secondly, because all that we most value is at stake in the present
contest, and your welcome of us under these circumstances will be a proof of
good will which will ever keep alive the gratitude you will lay up in our
hearts.
Thirdly, yourselves excepted, we are the greatest naval power in Hellas.
[2]
Moreover, can you conceive
a stroke of good fortune more rare in itself, or
more disheartening to your enemies, than that the power whose adhesion you
would have valued above much material and moral strength, should present
herself self-invited, should deliver herself into your hands without danger
and without expense, and should lastly put you in the way of gaining a high
character in the eyes of the world, the gratitude of those whom you shall
assist, and a great accession of strength for yourselves?
You may search all history without finding many instances of a people
gaining all these advantages at once, or many instances of a power that
comes in quest of assistance being in a position to give to the people whose
alliance she solicits as much safety and honor as she will receive.
[3]
But it will be urged that it is only in the case of a war that we shall be
found useful.
To this we answer that if any of you imagine that the war is far off, he is
grievously mistaken, and is blind to the fact that Lacedaemon regards you
with jealousy and desires war, and that Corinth is powerful
there,—the same, remember, that is your enemy, and is even now
trying to subdue us as a preliminary to attacking you. And this she does to prevent our becoming united by a common enmity, and
her having us both on her hands, and also to insure getting the start of you
in one of two ways, either by crippling our power or by making its strength
her own.
[4]
Now it is our policy to be beforehand with her—that is, for
Corcyra to make an offer of alliance and for you to accept it; in fact, we ought to form plans against her instead of waiting to defeat
the plans she forms against us.
Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War. London, J. M. Dent; New York, E. P. Dutton. 1910.
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References (37 total)
- Commentary references to this page
(11):
- Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Oedipus at Colonus, 1524
- Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Electra, 1320
- W. W. How, J. Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus, 7.168
- E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 3, 3.15
- E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 3, 3.39
- E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 6, 6.78
- T. G. Tucker, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 8, 8.98
- C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 4, CHAPTER XXVIII
- C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 4, CHAPTER LXII
- C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 5, 5.9
- E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides Book 1, 1.123
- Cross-references to this page
(6):
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 1.pos=2.1
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 3.1.3
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 3.2.3
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 3.5.3
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 3.6.1
- Smith's Bio, Evarchus
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(20):
- LSJ, ἁμαρτάνω
- LSJ, ἀεί-μνηστος
- LSJ, ἀντεπι-βουλεύω
- LSJ, αὐτ-επάγγελτος
- LSJ, βεβαι-όω
- LSJ, ἔπειτα
- LSJ, ἐπικουρ-ία
- LSJ, εὐπραξία
- LSJ, ἤ
- LSJ, κατατίθημι
- LSJ, μαρτύριον
- LSJ, πολεμ-ησείω
- LSJ, πρό
- LSJ, προεπι-βουλεύω
- LSJ, προκατα-λαμβάνω
- LSJ, προτερ-έω
- LSJ, σπα?́ν-ιος
- LSJ, συντυ^χ-ία
- LSJ, τι_μάω
- LSJ, χάρις
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