27
For that it was an encroachment little by little and was meant to accustom us to suffering such intrusions into our harbors, is plain from the following consideration. For the mere fact that the man who sailed the ship in, and whom you ought to have put out of existence at once, galley and all, asked permission to build small boats in our harbor—does it not make it perfectly plain that their scheme was not so much to enter the harbor as to be inside it from the first? And if we tolerate small craft, a little later it will be war-galleys as well; and if at first we sanction a few, there will soon be many.
28
For they cannot allege as their excuse that there is plenty of timber for shipbuilding at Athens, where we import it with great trouble from distant parts, but that it is scarce in Macedonia, where there is a cheap supply for all who want it. No, they thought that they would build their ships here and also furnish them with crews in our harbor, though it is expressly stipulated in the joint agreement that nothing of the kind should be permitted; and they thought too that it would always be more and more in their power to do this. Thus on every hand they treat our city with contempt, thanks to their prompters here, who suggest to them everything they should do.
29
and thus with their help they have discovered that there is an indescribable slackness and feebleness in our city, and that we take no thought for the morrow, and that it never occurs to us to consider how the tyrant is carrying out the joint agreement.
