Classical literature; Greece -- History -- Peloponnesian War, 431-404 B.C.; Greece -- History -- Spartan and Theban Supremacies, 404-362 B.C.
the same way? If they are sincere in their profession of friendship to
Lacedaemon, they ought to do so." The ephors and the members of assembly
at Sparta (19) gave audience to these several parties, and sent
out fifteen commissioners to Athens empowered, in conjunction with
Pausanias, to discover the best settlement possible. The terms (20)
arrived at were that a general peace between the rival parties should be
established, liberty to return to their own homes being granted to all,
with the exception of the Thirty, the Eleven, and the Ten who had been
governors in Piraeus; but a proviso was added, enabling any of the city
party who feared to remain at Athens to find a home in Eleusis.
(18) Halae, the salt marshy ground immediately behind the great
harbour of Piraeus, but outside the fortification lines.
(19) Cf. "Hell." VI. iii. 3, {oi ekkletoi}.
(20) Cf. Prof. Jebb, "Orators," i. 262, note 2.
And now that everything was happily concluded, Pausanias disbanded his
army, and the men from Piraeus marched up under arms into the acropolis
and offered sacrifice to Athena. When they were come down, the generals
called a meeting of the Ecclesia, (21) and Thrasybulus made a speech in
which, addressing the city party, he said: "Men of the city! I have one
piece of advice I would tender to you; it is that you should learn to
know yourselves, and towards the attainment of that self-knowledge I
would have you make a careful computation of your good qualities and
satisfy yourselves on the strength of which of these it is that you
claim to rule over us. Is it that you are more just than ourselves? Yet
the people, who are poorer--have never wronged you for the purposes of
plunder; but you, whose wealth would outweight the whole of ours, have
wrought many a shameful deed for the sake of gain. If, then, you have
no monopoly of justice, can it be on the score of courage that you are
warranted to hold your heads so high? If so, what fairer test of courage
will you propose than the arbitrament of war--the war just ended? Or do
you claim superiority of intelligence?--you, who with all your wealth of
arms and walls, money and Peloponnesian allies, have been paralysed by
men who had none of these things to aid them! Or is it on these Laconian
friends of yours that you pride yourselves? What! when these same
friends have dealt by you as men deal by vicious dogs. You know how that
is. They put a heavy collar round the neck of the brutes and hand them
over muzzled to their masters. So too have the Lacedaemonians handed you
over to the people, this very people whom you have injured; and now they
have turned their backs and are gone. But" (turning to the mass) "do
not misconceive me. It is not for me, sirs, coldly to beg of you, in no
respect to violate your solemn undertakings. I go further; I beg you,
to crown your list of exploits by one final display of virtue. Show
the world that you can be faithful to your oaths, and flawless in your
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