Kitap 4
18.4
Prudent men take the safe course of accounting prosperity mutableOr, “make sure of their advantages having regard to changes of luck,”—the same men, too, would deal more sagaciously with misfortunes—and consider that when anyone is at war he may not limit his participation to whatever portion of it he may choose to carry on,ie. in warfare one cannot accept only the successes and avoid the reverses by stopping before the latter set in; one is in the hands of fortune. but that he must follow where his fortune leads. Such men are least likely to come to grief, since they do not allow themselves to become elated by overconfidence in military success, and are therefore most likely to seize the moment of good fortune for concluding peace.
18.5
And this, Athenians, is the policy which it is good for you to adopt towards us to-day, and not at some future time, should you perchance through rejecting our overtures incur disaster—and of this there are many possibilities—be credited with having won even your present successes through good fortune, when it is possible to leave to posterity an unhazarded reputation at once for strength and sagacity.
19.1
"The Lacedaemonians therefore invite you to accept terms and bring the war to an end, offering you peace and alliance, and apart from this the maintenance of hearty friendship and intimacy one with the other; and asking on their side merely the return of the men on the island. They think it better for both parties not to take the risk either of the besieged making their escape in spite of you, should some chance of safety present itself, or of their being reduced by siege to a still harder lot.
