the authors of their salvation. And because all the world will have seen this,
you will cause the popular party in every city to consider your friendship a
guarantee of their own safety; nor could you reap any greater blessing than the
goodwill which will thus be offered to you, spontaneously and without
misgivings, upon every hand.

{5} I notice, to my surprise, that those who urge us to oppose the king in the
interest of the Egyptians,[n] are the very persons who are so afraid of him when
it is the interest of the popular party in Rhodes that is in question. And yet
it is known to every one that the Rhodians are Hellenes, while the Egyptians
have a place assigned them in the Persian Empire.

{6} I expect that some of you
remember that, when you were discussing our relations with the king, I came
forward and was the first to advise you[n] (though I had, I believe, no
supporters, or one at the most), that you would show your good sense, in my
opinion, if you did not make your hostility to the king the pretext of your
preparations, but prepared yourselves against the enemies whom you already had;
though you would resist him also, if he attempted to do you any injury.

{7} Nor,
when I spoke thus, did I fail to convince you, but you also approved of this
policy. What I have now to say is the sequel to my argument on that occasion.
For if the king were to call me to his side and make me his counsellor, I should
give him the same advice as I gave you--namely, that he should fight in defence
of his own possessions, if he were opposed by any Hellenic power, but should
absolutely forego all claim to what in no way belongs to him.

{8} If, therefore,
you have made a general resolve, men of Athens, to retire from any place of
which the king makes himself master, either by surprise or by the deception of
some of the inhabitants, you have not resolved well, in my judgement: but if you
are prepared, in defence of your rights, even to fight, if need be, and to
endure anything that may be necessary, not only will the need for such a step be
less, the more firmly your minds are made up, but you will also be regarded as
showing the spirit which you ought to show.

{9} To prove to you that I am not suggesting anything unprecedented in bidding
you liberate the Rhodians, and that you will not be acting without precedent, if
you take my advice, I will remind you of one of those incidents in the past
which have ended happily for you. You once sent out Timotheus, men of Athens, to
assist Ariobarzanes,[n] adding to your resolution the provision that he must not
break our treaty with the king; and Timotheus, seeing that Ariobarzanes was now
openly in revolt against the king, but that Samos was occupied by a garrison
under Cyprothemis, who had been placed there by Tigranes, the king's viceroy,
abandoned his intention of helping Ariobarzanes, but sat down before Samos,
relieved it, and set it free.

{10} And to this day no war has ever arisen to
trouble you on account of this. For to enter upon a war for the purpose of
aggrandizement is never the same thing as to do so in defence of one's own
possessions. Every one fights his hardest to recover what he has lost; but when
men endeavour to gain at the expense of others, it is not so. They desire to do
this, if it is allowed them; but if they are prevented, they do not consider
that their opponents have done them any wrong.

{11} Now listen for a moment, and consider whether I am right or wrong, when I
conclude that if Athens were actively at work, Artemisia herself would now not
even oppose our action. If the king effects in Egypt all that he is bent upon, I
believe that Artemisia would make every attempt to secure for him the continued
possession of Rhodes--not from any goodwill towards him, but from the desire to
be credited with a great service to him, while he is still in her
neighbourhood,[n] and so to win from him as friendly a reception as possible.