wing that it was not for the sake
of the Hellenes that you alone then did not Medize, but because the
Athenians did not do so either, and you wished to side with them and
to be against the rest; you now claim the benefit of good deeds done
to please your neighbours. This cannot be admitted: you chose the
Athenians, and with them you must stand or fall. Nor can you plead the
league then made and claim that it should now protect you. You abandoned
that league, and offended against it by helping instead of hindering the
subjugation of the Aeginetans and others of its members, and that not
under compulsion, but while in enjoyment of the same institutions that
you enjoy to the present hour, and no one forcing you as in our case.
Lastly, an invitation was addressed to you before you were blockaded
to be neutral and join neither party: this you did not accept. Who then
merit the detestation of the Hellenes more justly than you, you who
sought their ruin under the mask of honour? The former virtues that you
allege you now show not to be proper to your character; the real bent of
your nature has been at length damningly proved: when the Athenians took
the path of injustice you followed them.

"Of our unwilling Medism and your wilful Atticizing this then is our
explanation. The last wrong wrong of which you complain consists in our
having, as you say, lawlessly invaded your town in time of peace and
festival. Here again we cannot think that we were more in fault than
yourselves. If of our own proper motion we made an armed attack upon
your city and ravaged your territory, we are guilty; but if the first
men among you in estate and family, wishing to put an end to the foreign
connection and to restore you to the common Boeotian country, of their
own free will invited us, wherein is our crime? Where wrong is done,
those who lead, as you say, are more to blame than those who follow. Not
that, in our judgment, wrong was done either by them or by us. Citizens
like yourselves, and with more at stake than you, they opened their own
walls and introduced us into their own city, not as foes but as friends,
to prevent the bad among you from becoming worse; to give honest men
their due; to reform principles without attacking persons, since
you were not to be banished from your city, but brought home to your
kindred, nor to be made enemies to any, but friends alike to all.

"That our intention was not hostile is proved by our behaviour. We di