326 HISTORY OF GREECE some apologies for that brevity of speech which belonged to their country. Their proposition was in substance a very simple one ; " Give up to us the men in the island, and accept, in exchange for this favor, peace, with the alliance of Sparta." They en- forced their cause, by appeals, well-turned and conciliatory, partly indeed to the generosity, but still more to the prudential calculation of Athens ; explicitly admitting the high and glorious vantage-ground on which she was now placed, as well as their own humbled dignity and inferior position. 1 They, the Lacedae- monians, the first and greatest power in Greece, were now smit- ten by adverse fortune of war, and that too without misconduct of their own, so that they were for the first time obliged to solicit an enemy for peace ; which Athens had the precious opportunity of granting, not merely with honor to herself, but also in such manner as to create in their minds an ineffaceable friendship. And it became Athens to make use of her present good fortune while she had it, not to rely upon its permanence, nor to abuse it by extravagant demands ; her own imperial prudence, as well as the present circumstances of the Spartans, might teach her how unexpectedly the most disastrous casualties occurred. By granting what was now asked, she might make a peace which would be far more durable than if it were founded on the extorted compliances of a weakened enemy, because it would rest on Spartan honor and gratitude ; the greater the previous enmity, the stronger would be such reactionary sentiment. 2 But if Athens should now refuse, and if, in the farther prosecution of the war, the men in Sphakteria should perish, a new and inexpiable ground of quarrel, 3 peculiar to Sparta herself, would 1 Thuoyd. iv. 18. yvure 6s ical f rar r/^erfpaj vvv ^v^opii etc. * Thucyd. iv, 19. 3 Thucyd. iv, 20. qfiiv 6e /coXwf, elirsp KOTE, e^et uf^porepoif j) /layiy, irpiv TI UVJIKEOTOV 6ia peaov -yevopevov ijudf Kara/M/Belv, ev 9 iu6iov vficv extipav irpvf TTJ no ivy Kal 16 iav X.?iv, ifiuf 6e crE uv viv xpoKaAovfie&a. I understand these words noivr) and I6ia agreeably to the explanation of the Scholiast, from whom Dr. Arnold, as well as Poppo and Goller, depart, in my judgment erroneously. The whole war had been begun in consequence
f the complaints cf the Pelopouoesian allies, and of wrongs alleged to
