On the Peace (101-105)

We must not attribute the cause to any subsequent misfortunes but to their crimes in the beginning, as the result of which they were brought to such a disastrous end. So that anyone would be much more in accord with the truth if he should assert that they first became subject to the dominion of their present ills at the moment when they attempted to seize the dominion of the sea,[*] since they were seeking to acquire a power which was in no wise like that which they had before possessed.

For because of their supremacy on land and of their stern discipline and of the self control which was cultivated under it, they readily obtained command of the sea, whereas because of the arrogance[*] which was bred in them by that power they speedily lost the supremacy both on land and sea. For they no longer kept the laws which they had inherited from their ancestors nor remained faithful to the ways which they had followed in times past,

but conceived that they were licensed to do whatever they pleased and so were plunged into great confusion. For they did not know that this licence which all the world aspires to attain is a difficult thing to manage, that it turns the heads of those who are enamored by it, and that it is in its nature like courtesans, who lure their victims to love but destroy those who indulge this passion.

And yet it has been shown clearly that it has this effect; for anyone can see that those who have been in the strongest position to do whatever they pleased have been involved in the greatest disasters, ourselves and the Lacedaemonians first of all. For when these states, which in time past had governed themselves with the utmost sobriety and enjoyed the highest esteem,[*] attained to this license and seized the empire, they differed in no respect from each other, but, as is natural in the case of those who have been depraved by the same passions and the same malady, they attempted the same deeds and indulged in similar crimes and, finally, fell into like disasters.

For we, being hated by our allies and standing in peril of being enslaved, were saved by the Lacedaemonians;[*] and just so they, when all the rest wanted to destroy them, came to us for refuge and were saved through us.[*] And yet how can we praise a dominion which subjects us to so miserable an end? How can we fail to abhor and shun a power which has incited these two cities both to do and to suffer many abominable things?