The Peloponnesian War

by Thucydides

This shows how little trouble most people take in their search for the truth—they happily resort to ready-made opinions.

And this support was given at those critical times when people intent on their enemies are most oblivious of all considerations other than victory: at these times any helper is considered a friend, even if he was an enemy before, and any contrary view, even from friends, is taken as hostility, when the immediate urge to win displaces familiar relations.

fair treatment of your equals is a surer guarantee of power than the opportunistic pursuit of some immediate but risky advantage.

The true denial of freedom is not that of the enslaving power, but rather that of the people who have the ability to end the subjection but choose to do nothing about it—

The very fact of this hegemony was the initial spur to the expansion of the empire to its present extent: the motives driving us were, first and foremost, fear, then prestige, and later our own interests. There came a time when we realized that we could not safely run the risk of letting it go: most of our allies had come to hate us; some had already revolted and been subdued; your relations with us were no longer as friendly as they had been, but had turned to suspicion and grievance; and of course any of our subjects defecting from us would go over to you. No one can be blamed for looking after their own best interests when the stakes are so high.

Nor again did we start anything new in this, but it has always been the way of the world that the weaker is kept down by the stronger.

It seems that men are more angered by injustice than by enforcement: they see the one as advantage taken by an equal, the other as the compulsion of a superior.

When war is prolonged it tends to become largely a matter of chance, in which we are both equally far from control and both face the danger of an uncertain outcome.

none of them will share the longing for war felt by most who have never known the reality, nor will they think that there is any virtue or security in war.

a war undertaken by a whole confederacy in pursuit of individual grievances, with the outcome impossible to tell, cannot easily be settled on honourable terms.

Our discipline makes us both brave in war and sensible in policy: brave, because restraint is the greater part of shame, and shame the greater part of courage; sensible, because our tough training leaves us too naive to question the laws and too controlled to disobey them. We are not schooled in that useless over-intelligence which can make a brilliant verbal attack on the enemies’ plans but fail to match it in consequent action. Rather we are taught to believe that other people’s minds are similar to ours, and that no theory can determine the accidents of chance. It is always our principle to make practical plans on the assumption of an intelligent enemy, and not to let our hopes reside in the likelihood of his mistakes, but in the security of our own precautions.

Sensible men, for sure, do not disturb themselves if they are not wronged: but brave men wronged go from peace to war, and then make peace again when their fortune in war allows it. Such men are not excited by military success, but neither will they tolerate wrong done to them simply to preserve their enjoyment of peace and quiet. People whose present comfort makes them reluctant to act will quickly find that inaction brings the loss of that agreeable ease which caused their reluctance: and people who make grand presumptions after military success have not realized the fragility of the confidence which excites them.

And you will not be responsible for breaking the treaty, when the god himself in telling you to go to war considers it already broken: rather you will be avenging its violation. Treaties are not broken by acts of self-defence: they are broken by the initial aggression.

Do not be frightened by the immediate danger, but set your hearts on the more lasting peace which will follow. A peace won through war has a firmer base: to refuse war for the sake of the quiet life runs the greater risk.

Events can take as stupid a course as human designs: that is why we blame chance for all that runs counter to our calculation.

This “small matter” involves the whole confirmation of your resolve, and the test of it. If you give in to them on this, they will assume that fear prompted the concession and immediately impose some greater demand: stand firm on this, and you will make it clear to them that they would do better to treat you as equals.

Any claim enforced by equals on equals without recourse to arbitration, no matter whether the issue is of the greatest or the least significance, amounts still to enslavement.

Our constitution is called a democracy because we govern in the interests of the majority, not just the few. Our laws give equal rights to all in private disputes, but public preferment depends on individual distinction and is determined largely by merit rather than rotation: and poverty is no barrier to office, if a man despite his humble condition has the ability to do some good to the city. We are open and free in the conduct of our public affairs and in the uncensorious way we observe the habits of each other’s daily lives: we are not angry with our neighbour if he indulges his own pleasure, nor do we put on the disapproving look which falls short of punishment but can still hurt. We are tolerant in our private dealings with one another, but in all public matters we abide by the law: it is fear above all which keeps us obedient to the authorities of the day and to the laws, especially those laws established for the protection of the injured and those unwritten laws whose contravention brings acknowledged disgrace.

meet them with the courage which is born of character rather than compulsion,

We are unique in the way we regard anyone who takes no part in public affairs: we do not call that a quiet life, we call it a useless life.

True strength of spirit would rightly be attributed to those who have the sharpest perception of both terrors and pleasures and through that knowledge do not shrink from danger.

And when you realize her greatness, reflect that it was men who made her great, by their daring, by their recognition of what they had to do, and by their pride in doing it.

Realize that happiness is freedom, and freedom is courage, and do not be nervous of the dangers of war.

You know that you were born into a world of change and chance, where the true fortune is to meet with honour—the most honourable death for these we commemorate, the most honourable grief for you—and to enjoy a life whose measure of happiness fills both the living and the leaving of it.

Immediate pleasure, and any means profitable to that end, became the new honour and the new value.

‘You must not let yourselves be seen as doubly inferior to your fathers. They acquired these possessions not by inheritance from others, but through their own exertions, and furthermore kept them safe to hand on to you: and it is a greater disgrace to be robbed of what you possess than to fail in its acquisition. You must tackle the enemy, then, not only with conviction, but with the conviction of superiority. This is not the same as arrogance—even the coward can be arrogant if his stupidity is combined with good luck: but the conviction I speak of derives from a reasoned confidence in superiority over the enemy, and that is what we have.

After his death the foresight he had shown in regard to the war could be recognized yet more clearly. He had advised that the Athenians would win through if they kept patient, looked to the maintenance of their navy, and did not try to extend their empire during the war or take any risk that endangered the city. But they did the opposite of all this, and