Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 2.djvu/245

^6, 77] SPEECH OF HERMOCRA TES izyj the Persian, freely invited them to be their leaders ; and they accepted the invitation. But soon they charged them, some with desertion, and some with making war upon each other"; any plausible accusation which they could bring against any of them became an excuse for their over- throw. It was not for the liberties of Hellas that Athens, or for her own liberty that Hellas, fought against the Persian ; they fought, the Athenians that they might enslave Hellas to themselves instead of him, the rest of the Hellenes that they might get a new master, who may be cleverer, but certainly makes a more dishonest use of his wits. ' However, the character of the Athenians is known to 77 you already, and we do not come here The old tales and the to set forth their enormities, which old tmks are being re- would be an easy task, but rather to Pf^ "■'■ Shall we •^ allow ourselves to be accuse ourselves. We have had a taken in by them and warning in the fate of the Hellenes to succumb one by one ? elsewhere ; we know that they were reduced to slavery because they would not stand by one another. And when the same tricks are practised upon us ^ and we hear the old tale once more about the restoration of "our kinsmen the Leontines," and the succour of "our allies the Egest- aeans," why do we not all rise as one man and show them that here they will find, not lonians, nor yet Helles- pontians, nor islanders, who must always be the slaves, if not of the Persian, of some other master; but Dorians «  and free inhabitants of Sicily, sprung from the inde- pendent soil of Peloponnesus? Are we waiting till our cities are taken one by one, when we know that this is the only way in which we can be conquered ? We see what their policy is : how in some cases their cunning words sow ill-feeling ; in others they stir up war by the offer of alliance ; or again, by some well-invented phrase specially » Cp. i. 99. ^ Cp. iv. 61 med. "^ Cp. i. 124 init. ; v. 9 init. ; vii. 5 fin. ; viii. 25 med.