The Athenians then attempted to justify their imperial policy and to point out that, had the situation been reversed, and had it been the Lacedaemonians who had acquired an empire, they would have found it just as necessary as had Athens to rule with a strong hand, and that they would have {295} been even worse hated than was Athens. They concluded with a passionate appeal for peace: Do not then be hasty in deciding a question which is serious; and do not, by listening to the misrepresentations and complaints of others, bring trouble upon yourselves. Realize, while yet there is time, the inscrutable nature of war; and how when protracted it generally ends in becoming a mere matter of chance, over which neither of us can have any control, the event being equally unknown and equally hazardous to both. The misfortune is that in their hurry to go to war, men begin with blows, and when a reverse comes upon them, then have recourse to words. But neither you, nor we, have as yet committed this mistake; and therefore while both of us can still choose the prudent part, we tell you not to break the peace or violate your oaths. Let our differences be determined by arbitration according to the treaty. If you refuse, we call to witness the Gods, by whom you have sworn, that you are the authors of the war; and we will do our best to strike in return.[4] The Spartans did not heed the plea for peace, and in 431 B.C. the long dreary war, known in history as the Peloponnesian War, began and dragged itself out for nearly thirty years. Compared to modern warfare the actual fighting was not on a very large scale, and we seem to be reading of battles between what were, after all, only rather small states. But though the states were small, the statesmen who guided their policies and the men who fought for them were men of human passions like ours; and {296} though the method of warfare has changed, the effect of war on the minds and lives of men and women living at the time has changed very little. The future is hidden from the eyes of each generation of men, but the past lies open before them; and to those who read the past with understanding comes enlightenment when similar difficulties surround them, for the past shows not only the beginning and the middle, but also the end of the story.