‘Remember, you are hearing of these designs from the mouth of one who helped to form them, from one who did something towards carrying them out. While I was in Sicily, I saw a good deal of that country, and I tell you plainly, if you do not act at once, Syrakuse must fall, and with it Sicily, and all the other plans and hopes of the Athenians may be accomplished. Then you will have to look to your home. It will be too late to think of Sicily or your allies. Furnish, then, your ships without delay. Fill them with your bravest hoplites. Above all things, put over them your ablest general. ‘I will tell you one thing more. If you wish to drive the Athenians from Sicily, if you wish to frustrate their designs, if you wish to weaken them at home, you must attack them in their own country. You must take, and you must fortify, Dekeleia, in Attika. That is what the Athenians dread the most; that is the most deadly blow you can aim at them. It would take long to enumerate all the advantages you will gain thereby. The Syrakusans will be encouraged to hold out against their besiegers. It will prevent the Athenians sending reinforcements. They will want all their men to protect them at home. It will stop a great part of their supplies of food coming from their fertile fields. It will stop the silver coming from the mines at Laurion. It will, by degrees, detach from Athens the islands and towns which are now allied to her by the treaty of Delos, but which love her not. Many of these, even now, are looking for the first opportunity to shake off her heavy imposts and ally themselves to you. It will turn the wavering who have not yet determined to which side to look for help. It will close her tribunals, to which the islands and the smaller states dependent upon her are now obliged to take their causes, and she will thereby lose the large revenues she now receives from the fees paid to her by those litigants. ‘Do not suspect the advice I tender you, nor fear, because I counsel you against my country, that my advice is insincere. I would not wound my country, but my country’s secret enemies, who, by abusing the power of her laws, thrust out her truest friends from her. I seek not to destroy my country; I seek only to regain her. He shows his love of country most who does what in him lies to purge his country of her enemies at home, and to force her to receive again those true sons who have been driven from her by her foes. To gain this end I will spare no pains, avoid no labour, fear no dangers, in your service. Just as I inflicted great injury upon you as your opponent in open war, so now as your friend I am able to be of the greatest service to you. By following the twofold counsel I have given you, you will gain peace at home and the empire of all Greece, which will freely give herself to you without restraint.’