Kitap 7
1.1
In the following year ambassadors of the Lacedaemonians369 B.C. and their allies, with full powers, came to Athens to take counsel as to what should be the terms of the alliance between the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians. And while many foreigners and many Athenians said that the alliance ought to be on terms of full equality, Procles the Phliasian made the following speech:
1.2
Men of Athens, since you have decided that it is a good thing to make the Lacedaemonians your friends, it seems to me that you ought to consider this point, how the friendship is to endure for the longest possible time. Now it is only by making the compact on such terms as will be most advantageous to each party that we can expect it to be, in all probability, most enduring. The other points, then, have been pretty well agreed upon, but the question of the leadership is at present under discussion. Now it has been proposed by your Senate that the leadership by sea shall belong to you, and the leadership by land to the Lacedaemonians. And I, too, think that this distinction is based, not so much upon human judgment as upon divine arrangement and ordering.
1.3
In the first place, you have a position most excellently adapted by nature for supremacy by sea. For most of the states which are dependent upon the sea are situated round about your state, and they are all weaker than369 B.C. yours. In addition to this, you have harbours, without which it is not possible to enjoy naval power. Furthermore, you already possess many triremes, and it is a traditional policy of yours to keep adding ships.
