cted of, and will now
briefly recapitulate, in the hope of convincing you. We assert that we
are rulers in Hellas in order not to be subjects; liberators in Sicily
that we may not be harmed by the Sicilians; that we are compelled to
interfere in many things, because we have many things to guard against;
and that now, as before, we are come as allies to those of you who
suffer wrong in this island, not without invitation but upon invitation.
Accordingly, instead of making yourselves judges or censors of our
conduct, and trying to turn us, which it were now difficult to do, so
far as there is anything in our interfering policy or in our character
that chimes in with your interest, this take and make use of; and
be sure that, far from being injurious to all alike, to most of the
Hellenes that policy is even beneficial. Thanks to it, all men in
all places, even where we are not, who either apprehend or meditate
aggression, from the near prospect before them, in the one case, of
obtaining our intervention in their favour, in the other, of our arrival
making the venture dangerous, find themselves constrained, respectively,
to be moderate against their will, and to be preserved without trouble
of their own. Do not you reject this security that is open to all who
desire it, and is now offered to you; but do like others, and instead of
being always on the defensive against the Syracusans, unite with us, and
in your turn at last threaten them."

Such were the words of Euphemus. What the Camarinaeans felt was this.
Sympathizing with the Athenians, except in so far as they might be
afraid of their subjugating Sicily, they had always been at enmity with
their neighbour Syracuse. From the very fact, however, that they were
their neighbours, they feared the Syracusans most of the two, and being
apprehensive of their conquering even without them, both sent them
in the first instance the few horsemen mentioned, and for the future
determined to support them most in fact, although as sparingly as
possible; but for the moment in order not to seem to slight the
Athenians, especially as they had been successful in the engagement, to
answer both alike. Agreeably to this resolution they answered that
as both the contending parties happened to be allies of theirs, they
thought it most consistent with their oaths at present to side with
neither; with which answer the ambassadors of either party departed.

In the meantime, while Syracuse pursued