Panathenaicus (156-160)

I am going to begin what I shall say on this topic with a statement which will perhaps be unpleasant for some to hear, although it will not be without profit to have it said. For if anyone were to assert that Athens and Sparta had been the causes both of the greatest benefits and, after the expedition of Xerxes, of the greatest injuries to the Hellenes, without doubt he would be thought by those who know anything about the history of those times to speak the truth.

For they contended with the utmost possible bravery against the power of that King, but, having done this, although they ought then to have adopted sound measures also for the tasks which followed upon that achievement, they fell into such a degree, not of folly, but of madness, that they made peace with the man who had led an army against them and who had purposed to annihilate both these cities utterly and to enslave the rest of the Hellenes—

with such a man, I repeat, although they could easily have conquered him on both land and sea, they drew up a peace[*] for all time, as though he had been their benefactor, whereas, having grown jealous of each other’s merits and fallen into mutual warfare and rivalry, they did not cease attempting to destroy each other and the rest of the Hellenes until they had placed their common enemy in a position to reduce Athens, through the power of the Lacedaemonians, and again Sparta, through the power of Athens, to a state of the utmost peril.

And although they were so far outstripped in shrewdness by the barbarian, they then experienced no such resentment as the things which they suffered should have provoked nor such as it behoved them to feel; nor at the present time are the greatest of the states of Hellas ashamed to vie with each other in fawning upon the wealth of the King; nay, Argos and Thebes joined forces with him in the conquest of Egypt[*] in order that he might be possessed of the greatest possible power to plot against the Hellenes, while we and the Spartans, although allied together, feel more hostile to each other than to those with whom we are each openly at war.

And of this we have a not insignificant proof. For in common we deliberate about nothing whatsoever, but independently we each send ambassadors to the King, expecting that the one of these two states to which he inclines in friendship will be invested with the place of advantage among the Hellenes,[*] little realizing that those who court his favour he is wont to treat insolently while with those who oppose themselves to him and hold his power in contempt he endeavors by every means to come to terms.[*]