And yet our alliesEspecially the Corinthians. See Introduction. have been only too zealous in advising you that you must give up Messene and make peace. Because of this they merit your indignation far more than those who revoltedThe Arcadians had joined the Thebans in invading Sparta. The Argives, Eleans, and Achaeans had also forsaken Sparta and gone over partly or wholly to the Thebans. from you at the beginning. For the latter, when they had forsaken your friendship, destroyed their own cities, plunging them into civil strife and massacres and vicious forms of government.Such disturbances and changes of government took place about this time in Arcadia, Argos, Sicyon, Elis, and Phlius. See Xen. Hell. 7.1-4. By vicious forms of government Archidamus probably refers to the democracies which in various places had been set up instead of the earlier oligarchies. These men, on the other hand, come here to inflict injury upon us;

for they are trying to persuade us to throw away in one brief hour the glory which our forefathers amid manifold dangers during the course of seven hundred yearsA round number for the period between 1104 B.C., the traditional date when the sons of Heracles took Sparta, and the date of the present oration, 366 B.C. acquired and bequeathed to us—a disaster more humiliating to Lacedaemon and more terrible than any other they could ever have devised.

So far do they go in their selfish greed, so great is the cowardice which they impute to us, that they, who have time and again called upon us to make war in defense of their own territory,Especially Corinth and Phlius. See Xen. Hell. 4.4.7 and 15. think we ought not to risk battle for Messene, but, in order that they may themselves cultivate their lands in security, seek to convince us that we ought to yield to the enemy a portion of our own; and, besides all that, they threaten that if we do not comply with these terms, they will make a separate peace.

For my part, I do not think that our risk without their alliance will be as much more serious for us as it will be more glorious and splendid and notable in the eyes of all mankind; for to endeavor to preserve ourselves and to prevail over our enemies, not through the aid of others, but through our own powers, is in keeping with the past achievements of our state.

Although I have never been fond of oratory, having in fact always thought that those who cultivate the power of speech are somewhat lacking in capacity for action,An allusion to the traditional Spartan fondness for brevity and distrust of eloquence. yet at the moment there is nothing I should value more than the ability to speak as I desire about the question now before us; for in the present crisis I am confident that with this aid I could render a very great service to the state.