For with this one exception, what else is lacking? Was it not he who decided the issue of
 the war, was it not he who directed the terms of peace, and is it not he who now presides
 over our affairs? Do we not sail off to him as to a master, when we have complaints
 against each other? Do we not address him as “The Great King” as though we were the
 captives of his spear? Do we not in our wars against each other rest our hopes of
 salvation on him, who would gladly destroy both Athens and Lacedaemon ? Reflecting on these things, we may well be indignant at the present state of affairs,
 and yearn for our lost supremacy: and we may well blame the Lacedaemonians because,
 although in the beginning they entered upon the war The
 Peloponnesian War. with the avowed intention See
 words of Brasidas in Thuc. 4.85 . of freeing the
 Hellenes, in the end they delivered so many of them into bondage, and because they induced
 the Ionians to revolt from Athens , the mother
 city from which the Ionians emigrated and by whose influence they were often preserved
 from destruction, and then betrayed them By the Treaty of
 Antalcidas, negotiated by Sparta , the Ionian
 cities of Asia Minor and the neighboring
 islands were given over to Persia ( Xen. Hell. 5.1.31 ). to the barbarians—those
 barbarians in despite of whom they possess their lands and against whom they have never
 ceased to war. At that time the Lacedaemonians were indignant because we thought it right by legitimate
 means to extend our dominion over certain peoples. As, for
 example, over the Ionian cities. Now, however, they feel no concern, when these
 peoples are reduced to such abject servitude that it is not enough that they should be
 forced to pay tribute and see their citadels occupied by their foes, but, in addition to
 these public calamities, must also in their own persons submit to greater indignities than
 those which are suffered in our world by purchased slaves Slaves by purchase were in worse case than slaves by capture in battle. ; for
 none of us is so cruel to his servants as are the barbarians in punishing free men. But the crowning misery is that they are compelled to take the field with the enemy The Ionian cities were forced to fight with the Persians
 against Cyprus . See 134. in the very
 cause of slavery and to fight against men who assert their right to freedom, and to submit
 to hazards of war on such terms that in case of defeat they will be destroyed at once, and
 in case of victory they will strengthen the claims of their bondage for all time to come.
 For these evils, who else, can we think, is to blame but the Lacedaemonians, seeing that
 they have so great power, yet look on with indifference while those who have placed
 themselves under the Lacedaemonian alliance are visited with such outrages, and while the
 barbarian builds up his own empire by means of the strength of the Hellenes? In former
 days, it is true, they used to expel tyrants and bring succor to the people, but now they
 have so far reversed their policy that they make war on responsible governments and aid in
 establishing absolute monarchies;