Book 3
5.8
Men of Athens, as regards your complaints against us for having voted for harsh measures toward you at the conclusion of the war,Cp. II. ii. 19. your complaints are not justified; for it was not the state which voted for those measures, but only the one individual who proposed them, a man who chanced at that time to have a seat in the assembly of the allies. But when the Lacedaemonians summoned us to the attack upon Piraeus, then the whole state voted not to join them in the campaign.Cp. II. iv. 30. Therefore, since it is chiefly on your account that the Lacedaemonians are angry with us, we think it is fair that you should aid our state.
5.9
And we consider it in a far greater degree incumbent upon all those among you who belonged to the cityCp. II. iv. 11, 24, etc. party that you should zealously take the field against the Lacedaemonians. For the Lacedaemonians, after establishing you as an oligarchy and making you objects of hatred to the commons, came with a great force, ostensibly as your allies, and delivered you over to the democrats. Consequently, in so far as it depended upon them, you would certainly have perished, but the commons here saved you.
5.10
Furthermore, men of Athens, although we all understand that you would like to recover the dominion which you formerly possessed, we ask in what way this is more likely to come to pass than by your aiding those who are wronged by the Lacedaemonians? And do not be afraid because they rule over many, but much rather be of good courage on that account, keeping in mind your own case, that when the subjects over whom you ruled were the most numerous,395 B.C. then you had the most enemies. To be sure they concealed their enmity to you so long as they had no one to whom to revolt, but as soon as the Lacedaemonians offered themselves as leaders, then they showed what their feelings were toward you.
