A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

The Athenians
had
condemned
all to death,
but the question
was now
reopened.
214 The Peloponnesian War
obey in return for any kindness which you do them to
your own injury, but in so far as you are their masters;
they have no love of you, but they are held down by
force. Besides, what can be more detestable than to be
perpetually changing our minds? We forget that a state
in which the laws though imperfect are unalterable, is
better off than one in which the laws are good but powerless.
Dulness and modesty are a more useful combination
than cleverness and licence; and the more simple sort
generally make better citizens than the more astute.
For the latter desire to be thought wiser than the laws;
they want always to be taking a lead in
the discussions
of the assembly; they think that they can nowhere have a
finer opportunity of speaking their mind, and their folly
generally ends in
the ruin of their country; whereas the
others, mistrusting their own capacity, admit that the
laws are wiser than themselves; they do not pretend to
criticise the arguments of a great speaker; and being impartial
judges, not ambitious rivals, they are generally in
the right. That is the spirit in which we should act; not
suffering ourselves to be so excited by our own cleverness
in a war of wits as to advise the Athenian people contrary
The offence
of Mytilene
is especially
heinous.
Thucydides
ii. 39.
to our own better judgment. . . .
"I want you to put aside this trifling, and therefore I
say to you that no single city has ever injured us so deeply
as Mytilene. I can excuse those who find our rules too
heavy to bear, or who have revolted because the enemy
have compelled them. But islanders who had walls, and
were unassailable by our enemies except at sea, and on
that element were sufficiently protected by a fleet of their
own, who were independent and treated by us with the
highest regard, when they act thus they have not revolted,
(that word would imply that they were oppressed),