It seems evident, from the account of Thucydidês, that the Athenian public was not brought to this resolution without much reluctance, and great fear of the consequences, especially destruction of property in Attica: and that a considerable minority took opposition on the Megarian decree,—the ground skilfully laid by Sparta for breaking the unanimity of her enemy, and strengthening the party opposed to Periklês. But we may also decidedly infer from the same historian,—especially from the proceedings of Corinth and Sparta, as he sets them forth,—that Athens could not have avoided the war without such an abnegation, both of dignity and power as no nation under any government will ever submit to, and as would have even left her without decent security for her individual rights. To accept the war tendered to her, was a matter not merely of prudence but of necessity: the tone of exaction assumed by the Spartan envoys would have rendered concession a mere evidence of weakness and fear. As the account of Thucydidês bears out the judgment of Periklês on this important point,[196] so it also shows us that Athens was not less in the right upon the received principles of international dealing. It was not Athens, as the Spartans[197] themselves afterwards came to feel, but her enemies, who broke the provisions of the truce, by encouraging the revolt of Potidæa, and by promising invasion of Attica: it was not Athens, but her enemies, who, after thus breaking the truce, made a string of exorbitant demands, in order to get up as good a case as possible for war.[198] The case made out by Periklês, justifying the war on grounds both of right and prudence, is in all its main points borne out by the impartial voice of Thucydidês. And though it is perfectly true, that the ambition of Athens had been great, and the increase of her power marvellous, during the thirty-five years between the repulse of Xerxes and the thirty years’ truce,—it is not less true that by that truce she lost very largely, and that she acquired nothing to compensate such loss during the fourteen years between the truce and the Korkyræan alliance. The policy of Periklês had not been one of foreign aggrandizement, or of increasing vexation and encroachment towards other Grecian powers: even the Korkyræan alliance was noway courted by him, and was in truth accepted with paramount regard to the obligations of the existing truce: while the circumstances out of which that alliance grew, testify a more forward ambition on the part of Corinth than on that of Athens, to appropriate to herself the Korkyræan naval force. It is common to ascribe the Peloponnesian war to the ambition of Athens, but this is a partial view of the case. The aggressive sentiment, partly fear, partly hatred, was on the side of the Peloponnesians, who were not ignorant that Athens desired the continuance of peace, but were resolved not to let her stand as she was at the conclusion of the thirty years’ truce; it was