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For answer to this, I say thus. For the mentioning of the ancient state of Greece, he doth it briefly, insisting no longer upon it than is necessary for the well understanding of the following history. For without some general notions of these first times, many places of the history are the less easy to be understood; as depending upon the knowledge of the original of several cities and customs, which could not be at all inserted into the history itself, but must be either supposed to be foreknown by the reader, or else be delivered to him in the beginning as a necessary preface. And for his putting first the narration of the public and avowed cause of this war, and after that the true and inward motive of the same; the reprehension is absurd. For it is plain, that a cause of war divulged and avowed, how slight soever it be, comes within the task of the historiographer, no less than the war itself. For without a pretext, no war follows. This pretext is always an injury received, or pretended to be received. Whereas the inward motive to hostility is but conjectural; and not of that evidence, that a historiographer should be always bound to take notice of it: as envy to the greatness of another state, or fear of an injury to come. Now let any man judge, whether a good writer of history ought to handle, as the principal cause of war, proclaimed injury or concealed envy. In a word, the image of the method used by Thucydides in this point, is this: The quarrel about Corcyra passed on this manner; and the quarrel about Potidaea on this manner: relating both at large: and in both the Athenians were accused to have done the injury. Nevertheless, the Lacedæmonians had not upon this injury entered into a war against them, but that they envied the greatness of their power, and feared the consequence of their ambition. I think a more clear and natural order cannot possibly be devised.
