the terms of the armistice, and the ships were delivered over
to the number of sixty, and the envoys sent off accordingly. Arrived at
Athens they spoke as follows:

"Athenians, the Lacedaemonians sent us to try to find some way of
settling the affair of our men on the island, that shall be at once
satisfactory to our interests, and as consistent with our dignity in
our misfortune as circumstances permit. We can venture to speak at some
length without any departure from the habit of our country. Men of few
words where many are not wanted, we can be less brief when there is a
matter of importance to be illustrated and an end to be served by its
illustration. Meanwhile we beg you to take what we may say, not in a
hostile spirit, nor as if we thought you ignorant and wished to
lecture you, but rather as a suggestion on the best course to be taken,
addressed to intelligent judges. You can now, if you choose, employ your
present success to advantage, so as to keep what you have got and gain
honour and reputation besides, and you can avoid the mistake of those
who meet with an extraordinary piece of good fortune, and are led on by
hope to grasp continually at something further, through having already
succeeded without expecting it. While those who have known most
vicissitudes of good and bad, have also justly least faith in their
prosperity; and to teach your city and ours this lesson experience has
not been wanting.

"To be convinced of this you have only to look at our present
misfortune. What power in Hellas stood higher than we did? and yet we
are come to you, although we formerly thought ourselves more able
to grant what we are now here to ask. Nevertheless, we have not been
brought to this by any decay in our power, or through having our heads
turned by aggrandizement; no, our resources are what they have always
been, and our error has been an error of judgment, to which all are
equally liable. Accordingly, the prosperity which your city now enjoys,
and the accession that it has lately received, must not make you fancy
that fortune will be always with you. Indeed sensible men are prudent
enough to treat their gains as precarious, just as they would also
keep a clear head in adversity, and think that war, so far from staying
within the limit to which a combatant may wish to confine it, will run
the course that its chances prescribe; and thus, not being puffed up by
confidence in military success, they are less likely to