THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS
peace has not the less hazardous honors and splendors? with all other topics which one might discuss in many words, on such a subject as war. Considering then these things, you ought not to disregard what I say, but should rather provide each for your own safety in compliance with it. And if any one think that he shall certainly gain some advantage, either by right or might, let him not be annoyed by failure through the unexpected result; knowing that many men ere now, both while pursuing with vengeance those who have wronged them, and hoping, in other instances, to win an advantage by greater power, in the one case, so far from avenging themselves, have not even saved themselves; and in the other, instead of gaining more, have happened also to lose what they had. For vengeance is not necessarily successful, because a man is injured; nor is strength sure, because it is sanguine. But the incalculable nature of the future prevails to the greatest possible degree; and tho the most deceptive of all things, still proves the most useful; for because we are equally afraid, we are more cautious in attacking one another.
And now, on account of our indefinite fear of this unknown future, and our immediate dread of the Athenians' presence, being alarmed on both these grounds, and thinking, with regard to any failure in our ideas of what we severally thought to achieve, that these obstacles are a sufficient bar to their fulfilment, let us send away from the country the enemy that is among us,
58
