{12} But if he is faring as we are told, if all his attempts have failed, she
will consider, and rightly, that the island can be of no further use to the
king, except as a fortified post to command her own dominions--a security
against any movement on her part. Accordingly she would prefer, I believe, that
you should have it, without her openly surrendering it to you, rather than that
he should occupy it. I think, therefore, that she would not even make an attempt
to save it; or that if she actually did so, it would be but weakly and
ineffectively.

{13} For although I cannot, of course, profess to know what the
king will do, I must insist that it is high time that it should be made clear,
in the interests of Athens, whether he intends to lay claim to Rhodes or not:
for if he does so, we have then to take counsel, not for the Rhodians alone, but
for ourselves and for the Hellenes as a whole.

{14} At the same time, even if the Rhodians who are now in possession[n] of the
town held it by their own strength, I should never have urged you to take them
for your allies, for all the promises in the world. For I observe that they took
to their side some of their fellow citizens, to help them overthrow the
democracy, and that, having done this, they turned and expelled them: and I do
not think that men who failed to keep faith with either party would ever be
trustworthy allies for yourselves.

{15} And further, I should never have made my
present proposal, had I been thinking only of the interests of the popular party
in Rhodes. I am not their official patron,[n] nor have I a single personal
friend among them; and even if both these things were otherwise, I should not
have made this proposal, had I not believed it to be for your advantage. For as
for the Rhodians, if I may use such an expression when I am pleading with you to
save them, I share your joy[1] at what has happened to them. For it is because
they grudged you the recovery of your rights that they have lost their own
freedom; and that, instead of the equal alliance which they might have had with
Hellenes, better than themselves, they are in bondage to foreigners and slaves,
whom they have admitted to their citadels.

{16} Indeed, if you resolve to go to
their aid, I may almost say that this calamity has been good for them; for,
Rhodians as they are, I doubt if they would ever have come to their right mind
in prosperity; whereas actual experience has now taught them that folly
generally leads to manifold adversities; and perhaps they will be wiser for the
future. This lesson, I feel sure, will be no small advantage to them. I say then
that you should endeavour to save these men, and should bear no malice,
remembering that you too have been greatly deceived by conspirators against you,
and yet would not admit that you deserved yourselves to suffer for such
mistakes.

Observe this also, men of Athens.

{17} You have waged many wars both against
democracies and against oligarchies; and of this no doubt you are as well aware
as I. But I doubt whether any of you considers for what objects you are fighting
in each case. What then are these objects? In fighting against a democracy, you
are fighting either over some private quarrel, when the parties have failed to
settle their disputes by the means publicly provided;[n] or you are contending
for a piece of territory, or about a boundary, or for a point of honour, or for
paramountcy. But in fighting against an oligarchy, it is not for any such
objects--it is your constitution and your freedom that are at stake.

{18} And therefore I should not hesitate to say that I believe it would be better for
you, that all the Hellenic peoples should be democracies, and be at war with
you, than that they should be governed by oligarchies, and be your friends. For
with a free people you would have no difficulty, I believe, in making peace
whenever you desired: but with an oligarchical State friendship itself cannot be
safe. For there can be no goodwill between Few and Many--between those who seek