Panegyricus (174-177)

When these conditions have been realized, and when we have been freed from the poverty which afflicts our lives—a thing that breaks up friendships, perverts the affections of kindred into enmity, and plunges the whole world into war and strife[*]—then surely we shall enjoy a spirit of concord, and the good will which we shall feel towards each other will be genuine. For all these reasons, we must make it our paramount duty to transfer the war with all speed from our boundaries to the continent, since the only benefit which we can reap from the wars which we have waged against each other is by resolving that the experience which we have gained from them shall be employed against the barbarians.

But is it not well, you may perhaps ask, on account of the Treaty,[*] to curb ourselves and not be over-hasty or make the expedition too soon, seeing that the states which have gained their freedom through the Treaty feel grateful toward the King, because they believe that it was through him that they gained their independence, while those states which have been delivered over to the barbarians complain very bitterly of the Lacedaemonians and only less bitterly of the other Hellenes who entered into the peace, because, in their view, they were forced by them into slavery? But, I reply, is it not our duty to annul this agreement, which has given birth to such a sentiment—the sentiment that the barbarian cares tenderly for Hellas, and stands guard over her peace, while among ourselves are to be found those who outrage and evilly entreat her?

The crowning absurdity of all, however, is the fact that among the articles which are written in the agreement it is only the worst which we guard and observe. For those which guarantee the independence of the islands and of the cities in Europe have long since been broken and are dead letters on the pillars,[*] while those which bring shame upon us and by which many of our allies have been given over to the enemy—these remain intact, and we all regard them as binding upon us, though we ought to have expunged them and not allowed them to stand a single day, looking upon them as commands, and not as compacts; for who does not know that a compact is something which is fair and impartial to both parties, while a command is something which puts one side at a disadvantage unjustly?

On this ground we may justly complain of our envoys who negotiated this peace,[*] because, although dispatched by the Hellenes, they made the Treaty in the interest of the barbarians. For they ought, no matter whether they took the view that each of the states concerned should retain its original territory, or that each should extend its sovereignty over all that it had acquired by conquest, or that we should each retain control over what we held when peace was declared—they ought, I say, to have adopted definitely some one of these views, applying the principle impartially to all, and on this basis to have drafted the articles of the Treaty.