90
For no man nor any state could obtain a position more excellent than this or more secure or of greater worth. And it was because they acquired just this position that our ancestors in the time of the Persian Wars did not live in the manner of freebooters, now having more than enough for their needs, again reduced to a state of famine and siegeThey were virtually in a state of seige after the occupation of Decelea by the Spartans, who cut off their food supplies. and extreme misfortuneThe terrible plague described by Thucydides (i. 23; ii. 48 ff.).; on the contrary, while they lived neither in want nor in surfeit of the means of subsistence day by day, they prided themselves on the justice of their polity and on their own virtues, and passed their lives more pleasantly than the rest of the world.
91
But, heedless of these lessons, those who came after them desired, not to rule but to dominateThat is, to rule by consent as against ruling by force—delegated as against irresponsible power. See Isoc. 4.80 ff.—words which are thought to have the same meaning, although between them there is the utmost difference. For it is the duty of those who rule to make their welfare,Cf. Isoc. Letter 7.4. whereas it is a habit of those who dominate to provide pleasures for themselves through the labors and hardships of others. But it is in the nature of things that those who attempt a despot’s course must encounter the disasters which befall despotic powerDescribed in 111-113. and be afflicted by the very things which they inflict upon others. And it is just this which has happened in the case of Athens;
