History of The Peloponnesian War - Book I   

Meanwhile, after the completion of the investment of Potidaea, Phormio
next employed his sixteen hundred men in ravaging Chalcidice and
Bottica: some of the towns also were taken by him.

CHAPTER III.

Congress of the Peloponnesian Confederacy
at Lacedaemon

THE Athenians and Peloponnesians had these antecedent grounds of
complaint against each other: the complaint of Corinth was that her
colony of Potidaea, and Corinthian and Peloponnesian citizens within
it, were being besieged; that of Athens against the Peloponnesians
that they had incited a town of hers, a member of her alliance and a
contributor to her revenue, to revolt, and had come and were openly
fighting against her on the side of the Potidaeans. For all this,
war had not yet broken out: there was still truce for a while; for
this was a private enterprise on the part of Corinth.
But the siege of Potidaea put an end to her inaction; she had men
inside it: besides, she feared for the place. Immediately summoning
the allies to Lacedaemon, she came and loudly accused Athens of breach
of the treaty and aggression on the rights of Peloponnese. With her,
the Aeginetans, formally unrepresented from fear of Athens, in
secret proved not the least urgent of the advocates for war, asserting
that they had not the independence guaranteed to them by the treaty.
After extending the summons to any of their allies and others who
might have complaints to make of Athenian aggression, the
Lacedaemonians held their ordinary assembly, and invited them to
speak. There were many who came forward and made their several
accusations; among them the Megarians, in a long list of grievances,
called special attention to the fact of their exclusion from the ports
of the Athenian empire and the market of Athens, in defiance of the
treaty. Last of all the Corinthians came forward, and having let those
who preceded them inflame the Lacedaemonians, now followed with a
speech to this effect:
"Lacedaemonians! the confidence which you feel in your
constitution and social order, inclines you to receive any reflections
of ours on other powers with a certain scepticism. Hence springs
your moderation, but hence also the rather limited knowledge which you
betray in dealing with foreign politics. Time after time was our voice
raised to warn you of the blows about to be dealt us by Athens, and
time after time, instead of taking the trouble to ascertain the
worth of our communications, you contented yourselves with
suspecting the speakers of being inspired by private interest. And so,
instead of calling these allies together before the blow fell, you
have delayed to do so till we are smarting under it; allies among whom
we have not the worst title to speak, as having the greatest
complaints to make, complaints of Athenian outrage and Lacedaemonian
neglect. Now if these assaults on the rights of Hellas had been made
in the dark, you might be unacquainted with the facts, and it would be
our duty to enlighten you. As it is, long speeches are not needed
where you see servitude accomplished for some of us, meditated for
others- in particular for our allies- and prolonged preparations in
the aggressor against the hour of war. Or what, pray, is the meaning
of their reception of Corcyra by fraud, and their holding it against
us by force? what of the siege of Potidaea?- places one of which lies
most conveniently for any action against the Thracian towns; while the
other would have contributed a very large navy to the Peloponnesians?
"For all this you are responsible. You it was who first allowed them
to fortify their city after the Median war, and afterwards to erect
the long walls- you who, then and now, are always depriving of
freedom not only those whom they have enslaved, but also those who
have as yet been your allies. For the true author of the subjugation
of a people is not so much the immediate agent, as the power which