114
But I do not fail to realize that while you accept readily what I say about the rule of despots, yet you hear with intolerance what I say about the empire of the sea. For you have fallen into a most shameful and careless way of thinking, since what you see clearly in the case of others, this you are blind to in your own case. And yet it is not the least important sign of whether men are possessed of intelligence if they are seen to recognize the same course of conduct in all cases that are comparable.That is, if they apply the same standard of judgement to all similar cases.
115
But you have never given this a thought; on the contrary, while you consider the power of a despot to be harsh and harmful not only to others but to those who hold it, you look upon the empire of the sea as the greatest good in the world, when in fact it differs neither in what it does nor in what it suffers from one-man-rule. And you think that the affairs of the Thebans are in a bad way because they oppress their neighbors,The Thespians and the Plataeans, whom the Thebans expelled from their territory. but, although you yourselves are treating your allies no better than the Thebans treat the Boeotians, you believe that your own actions leave nothing to be desired.
116
If, then, you heed my advice you will stop taking counsel in your utterly haphazard fashion and give your attention to your own and the state’s welfare; pondering and searching into these questions: What is it which caused these two states—Athens and Sparta I mean—to rise, each one of them, from obscure beginnings to be the first power in Hellas and then to fall, after they had attained a power second to none, into peril of being enslaved?
