4
Yes, and I so impressed my hearers by my statement of the case that not one of them thought of applauding my oratory or the finish and the purity of my style, as some are wont to do, but instead they marvelled at the truth of my arguments, and were convinced that only on certain conditions could you and the Athenians be made to cease from your contentious rivalry.
5
In the first place, you, for your part, will have to be persuaded that the friendship of our city would be worth more to you than the revenues which you derive from Amphipolis, while Athens will have to learn, if she can, the lesson that she should avoid planting the kind of coloniesSuch as Amphipolis, surrounded by warlike tribes. which have been the ruin, four or five times over, of those domiciled in them, and should seek out for colonization the regions which are far distant from peoples which have a capacity for dominion and near those which have been habituated to subjection—such a region as, for example, that in which the Lacedaemonians established the colony of Cyrene.Cyrene, in northern Africa. See Grote, Hist. iii. p. 445.
6
In the next place, you will have to realize that by formally surrendering this territory to us you would in fact still hold it in your power, and would, besides, gain our good will, for you would then have as many hostages of ours to guarantee our friendship as we should send out settlers into the region of your influence; while someone will have to make our own people see that, if we got possession of Amphipolis, we should be compelled to maintain the same friendly attitude toward your policy, because of our colonists there, as we did for the elder AmadocusAn alliance was entered into between Athens and Amadocus, the powerful Thracian king, 390 B.C. (Xen. Hell. 4.8.26). because of our landholders in the Chersonese.
