War, however, was not immediately declared. Several embassies passed between Sparta and Athens, partly for the sake of procrastinating a contest for which neither party felt quite ready, partly to produce discord and embarrass the Athenian government. One of these was commissioned to require that due atonement should be made for the murder of Cylon, to avert the anger of the gods from Greece. The Lacedæmonians required that all persons descended from the guilty family should be banished, in the number of whom Pericles was included by his maternal descent, not from any hope of obtaining his banishment, but with the view of throwing on him the odium of involving the city in war on his own account. He eluded the difficulty by reminding them of a similar instance of impiety committed by the Spartan government, which had never been atoned for, and bidding them first make due expiation for that. A second and a third embassy were sent, without producing any hopes of a reconciliation; and when the people were convoked to consider of the last of these, Pericles addressed the assembly in a speech urging it decidedly to reject the haughty demands of the Peloponnesians, which were merely the forerunners of more extensive requisitions. He proceeded to encourage them by contrasting their own wealth with the scanty revenue of the Peloponnesians; a poverty which prevented the latter from engaging in long and distant wars, and which had kept them unacquainted with maritime affairs. He admitted that in one battle they might be victorious over all the rest of Greece; but asserted that they would neither expect nor be able to support a long and expensive war. He explained the manner in which he proposed to conduct the contest which he advised, abandoning Attica to the ravage of the enemy, and taking ample satisfaction by a series of predatory excursions round the coast of Peloponnesus. “It is a very different matter,” he continued, “that the whole of Attica, or that a small part even of Peloponnesus, should be laid waste. For our antagonists can find no other territory except by fighting for it; whereas for us there is abundance, both on the continent and in islands; for the dominion of the sea is a mighty thing; and consider, if we were islanders, who would be so secure from attack as ourselves? Now then we should aim at placing ourselves as nearly in that situation as possible, caring not for houses and lands, but looking to the safety of our city and the sovereignty of the sea, and taking care not to be led by passion to give battle to the Peloponnesians, who are much our superiors in number. For if we beat them, they will fight again in equal force; but if we are beaten, we lose our allies, wherein lies our strength. Let our lament be for men’s bodies, not for houses and lands, for these do not get men, but men get them.”[86]