We have more than one picture of the Athenian empire, in speeches made by hostile orators who had every motive to work up the strongest antipathies in the bosoms of their audience against it. We have the addresses of the Corinthian envoys at Sparta when stimulating the Spartan allies to the Peloponnesian war,[341]—that of the envoys from Mitylênê delivered at Olympia to the Spartan confederates, when the city had revolted from Athens and stood in pressing need of support,—the discourse of Brasidas in the public assembly at Akanthus,—and more than one speech also from Hermokrates, impressing upon his Sicilian countrymen hatred as well as fear of Athens.[342] Whoever reads these discourses, will see that they dwell almost exclusively on the great political wrong inherent in the very fact of her empire, robbing so many Grecian communities of their legitimate autonomy, over and above the tribute imposed. That Athens had thus already enslaved many cities, and was only watching for opportunities to enslave many more, is the theme upon which they expatiate. But of practical grievances,—of cruelty, oppression, spoliation, multiplied exiles, etc., of high-handed wrong committed by individual Athenians,—not one word is spoken. Had there been the smallest pretext for introducing such inflammatory topics, how much more impressive would have been the appeal of Brasidas to the sympathies of the Akanthians! How vehement would have been the denunciations of the Mitylenæan envoys, in place of the tame and almost apologetic language which we now read in Thucydides! Athens extinguished the autonomy of her subject-allies, and punished revolters with severity, sometimes even with cruelty. But as to other points of wrong, the silence of accusers, such as those just noticed, counts as a powerful exculpation. [341] Thucyd. i, 68-120. [342] Thucyd. iii, 9; iv, 59-85; vi, 76.