9
But I shall get no answer. Yet you all know that, whether these speakers advise it or not, you are bound to help the Messenians, both for the sake of your sworn agreement with them and for the advantage that you derive from the preservation of their city. Just ask yourselves at what point you would begin to make your stand against Lacedaemonian injustice with more honor and generosity—with the defence of Megalopolis or with the defence of Messene.
10
In the one case, you will show yourselves ready to help the Arcadians and eager to confirm the peace for which you faced danger on the field of battle. In the other case, everyone will see clearly that you wish to preserve Messene less for the sake of justice than for fear of the Lacedaemonians. But the proper course is in all things to find out what is right and then do it, though at the same time we must take care that what we do is expedient as well.
11
Now my opponents argue that the recovery of Oropus is something that we ought to attempt, but that if we make enemies of those who would have helped us to recover it, we shall have no allies. I too think that we ought to recover Oropus, but to say that the Lacedaemonians will be our enemies as soon as we make allies of those Arcadians who are willing to be our friends—I think the only men who have no right even to suggest that are the men who persuaded you to help the Lacedaemonians in their hour of danger.
12
For when all the Peloponnesians came to you and called on you to lead them against the Lacedaemonians, it was not by such arguments that these men persuaded you not to receive them—(and that was why they took the only remaining course of applying to the Thebans)—but to contribute funds and risk your lives for the safety of the Lacedaemonians. Yet you would surely never have consented to save them, if they had announced to you that when saved they would owe you no thanks for your help, unless you allowed them as before to commit whatever act of injustice they chose.
