And then they ask us, when such is our plight, what deliverance there can be for the city, unless we do as the Lacedaemonians demand. But I call upon them to tell us what profit will accrue to the people if we obey their orders. If we do not, it will be far nobler to die fighting than to pass a manifest sentence of death upon ourselves. For I believe that if I can persuade you, the danger will be common to both sides There is probably a gap here in the text. 
 And I observe the same attitude in both the Argives and the Mantineans, each inhabiting their own land,—the former bordering on the Lacedaemonians, the latter dwelling near them; in the one case, their number is no greater than ours, in the other it is less than three thousand. For their enemies know that, often as they may invade the territories of these peoples, as often will they march out to oppose them under arms, so that they see no glory in the venture: if they should be victorious, they could not enslave them, and if they should be defeated, they must deprive themselves of the advantages that they already possess. The more they prosper, the less is their appetite for risk. We also, men of Athens , held these views, when we had command over the Greeks; and we deemed it a wise course to suffer our land to be ravaged without feeling obliged to fight in its defence. For our interest lay in neglecting a few things in order to conserve many advantages. But today, when the fortune of battle has deprived us of all these, and our native land is all that is left to us, we know that only this venture holds out hopes of our deliverance. But surely we ought to remember that heretofore, when we have gone to the support of others who were victims of injury, we have set up many a trophy over our foes on alien soil, and so ought now to act as valiant defenders of our country and of ourselves: let us trust in the gods, and hope that they will stand for justice on the side of the injured.