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 Cf. Theognis, 386 ff. —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, The Treaty of Antalcidas. See 115-120 and notes. 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, Articles of treaties were commonly inscribed
 on pillars of stone, set up either within a public temple or near it. 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, Chiefly Antalcidas of Sparta and Tiribazus, the Persian satrap, negotiated the peace. Isocrates
 complains that the treaty was arbitrary—not based on any principle whatsoever. 
 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.