post might be able to do some harm to the country by incursions and by
the facilities which it would afford for desertion, but can never
prevent our sailing into their country and raising fortifications
there, and making reprisals with our powerful fleet. For our naval
skill is of more use to us for service on land, than their military
skill for service at sea. Familiarity with the sea they will not
find an easy acquisition. If you who have been practising at it ever
since the Median invasion have not yet brought it to perfection, is
there any chance of anything considerable being effected by an
agricultural, unseafaring population, who will besides be prevented
from practising by the constant presence of strong squadrons of
observation from Athens? With a small squadron they might hazard an
engagement, encouraging their ignorance by numbers; but the
restraint of a strong force will prevent their moving, and through
want of practice they will grow more clumsy, and consequently more
timid. It must be kept in mind that seamanship, just like anything
else, is a matter of art, and will not admit of being taken up
occasionally as an occupation for times of leisure; on the contrary,
it is so exacting as to leave leisure for nothing else.
"Even if they were to touch the moneys at Olympia or Delphi, and try
to seduce our foreign sailors by the temptation of higher pay, that
would only be a serious danger if we could not still be a match for
them by embarking our own citizens and the aliens resident among us.
But in fact by this means we are always a match for them; and, best of
all, we have a larger and higher class of native coxswains and sailors
among our own citizens than all the rest of Hellas. And to say nothing
of the danger of such a step, none of our foreign sailors would
consent to become an outlaw from his country, and to take service with
them and their hopes, for the sake of a few days' high pay.
"This, I think, is a tolerably fair account of the position of the
Peloponnesians; that of Athens is free from the defects that I have
criticized in them, and has other advantages of its own, which they
can show nothing to equal. If they march against our country we will
sail against theirs, and it will then be found that the desolation
of the whole of Attica is not the same as that of even a fraction of
Peloponnese; for they will not be able to supply the deficiency except
by a battle, while we have plenty of land both on the islands and
the continent. The rule of the sea is indeed a great matter.
Consider for a moment. Suppose that we were islanders; can you
conceive a more impregnable position? Well, this in future should,
as far as possible, be our conception of our position. Dismissing
all thought of our land and houses, we must vigilantly guard the sea
and the city. No irritation that we may feel for the former must
provoke us to a battle with the numerical superiority of the
Peloponnesians. A victory would only be succeeded by another battle
against the same superiority: a reverse involves the loss of our
allies, the source of our strength, who will not remain quiet a day
after we become unable to march against them. We must cry not over the
loss of houses and land but of men's lives; since houses and land do
not gain men, but men them. And if I had thought that I could persuade
you, I would have bid you go out and lay them waste with your own
hands, and show the Peloponnesians that this at any rate will not make
you submit.
"I have many other reasons to hope for a favourable issue, if you
can consent not to combine schemes of fresh conquest with the
conduct of the war, and will abstain from wilfully involving
yourselves in other dangers; indeed, I am more afraid of our own
blunders than of the enemy's devices. But these matters shall be
explained in another speech, as events require; for the present
dismiss these men with the answer that we will allow Megara the use of
our market and harbours, when the Lacedaemonians suspend their alien
acts in favour of us and our allies, there being nothing in the treaty
to prevent either one or the other: that we will leave the cities
independent, if independent we found them when we made the treaty, and