THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS
claim to intelligence, if successful. For it frequently happens that the results of measures proceed no less incomprehensibly than the counsels of man; and therefore we are accustomed to regard fortune as the author of all things that turn out contrary to our expectation.
Now the Lacedæmonians were both evidently plotting against us before, and now especially are doing so. For whereas it is expressed in the treaty, that we should give and accept judicial decisions of our differences, and each side [in the mean time] keep what we have; they have neither themselves hitherto asked for such a decision, nor do they accept it when we offer it; but wish our complaints to be settled by war rather than by words; and are now come dictating, and no longer expostulating. For they command us to raise the siege of Potidæa, and to leave Ægina independent, and to rescind the decree respecting the Megareans; while these last envoys that have come charge us also to leave the Greeks independent. But let none of you think we should be going to war for a trifle, if we did not rescind the decree respecting the Megareans, which they principally put forward,
for them to say, in view of the situation: at the same time I have adhered as closely as possible to the general sense of what was actually said." R. C. Jebb, discussing this matter, says: "We may be sure that wherever Thucydides had any authentic clue to the actual tenor of the speech, he preferred to follow that clue rather than to draw on his own invention." Jebb adds, that "to these speeches is due, in no small measure, the imperishable intellectual interest of the history."
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