or giving way to the three failings most fatal to empire- pity,
sentiment, and indulgence. Compassion is due to those who can
reciprocate the feeling, not to those who will never pity us in
return, but are our natural and necessary foes: the orators who
charm us with sentiment may find other less important arenas for their
talents, in the place of one where the city pays a heavy penalty for a
momentary pleasure, themselves receiving fine acknowledgments for
their fine phrases; while indulgence should be shown towards those who
will be our friends in future, instead of towards men who will
remain just what they were, and as much our enemies as before. To
sum up shortly, I say that if you follow my advice you will do what is
just towards the Mitylenians, and at the same time expedient; while by
a different decision you will not oblige them so much as pass sentence
upon yourselves. For if they were right in rebelling, you must be
wrong in ruling. However, if, right or wrong, you determine to rule,
you must carry out your principle and punish the Mitylenians as your
interest requires; or else you must give up your empire and
cultivate honesty without danger. Make up your minds, therefore, to
give them like for like; and do not let the victims who escaped the
plot be more insensible than the conspirators who hatched it; but
reflect what they would have done if victorious over you, especially
they were the aggressors. It is they who wrong their neighbour without
a cause, that pursue their victim to the death, on account of the
danger which they foresee in letting their enemy survive; since the
object of a wanton wrong is more dangerous, if he escape, than an
enemy who has not this to complain of. Do not, therefore, be
traitors to yourselves, but recall as nearly as possible the moment of
suffering and the supreme importance which you then attached to
their reduction; and now pay them back in their turn, without yielding
to present weakness or forgetting the peril that once hung over you.
Punish them as they deserve, and teach your other allies by a striking
example that the penalty of rebellion is death. Let them once
understand this and you will not have so often to neglect your enemies
while you are fighting with your own confederates."
Such were the words of Cleon. After him Diodotus, son of Eucrates,
who had also in the previous assembly spoken most strongly against
putting the Mitylenians to death, came forward and spoke as follows:
"I do not blame the persons who have reopened the case of the
Mitylenians, nor do I approve the protests which we have heard against
important questions being frequently debated. I think the two things
most opposed to good counsel are haste and passion; haste usually goes
hand in hand with folly, passion with coarseness and narrowness of
mind. As for the argument that speech ought not to be the exponent
of action, the man who uses it must be either senseless or interested:
senseless if he believes it possible to treat of the uncertain
future through any other medium; interested if, wishing to carry a
disgraceful measure and doubting his ability to speak well in a bad
cause, he thinks to frighten opponents and hearers by well-aimed
calumny. What is still more intolerable is to accuse a speaker of
making a display in order to be paid for it. If ignorance only were
imputed, an unsuccessful speaker might retire with a reputation for
honesty, if not for wisdom; while the charge of dishonesty makes him
suspected, if successful, and thought, if defeated, not only a fool
but a rogue. The city is no gainer by such a system, since fear
deprives it of its advisers; although in truth, if our speakers are to
make such assertions, it would be better for the country if they could
not speak at all, as we should then make fewer blunders. The good
citizen ought to triumph not by frightening his opponents but by
beating them fairly in argument; and a wise city, without
over-distinguishing its best advisers, will nevertheless not deprive
them of their due, and, far from punishing an unlucky counsellor, will
not even regard him as disgraced. In this way successful orators would
be least tempted to sacrifice their convictions to popularity, in
the hope of still higher honours, and unsuccessful speakers to