present, in the event of faction, those who set it in foot base their
hopes of success on the introduction of an enemy by land. But a people
inhabiting an island would be free from all anxiety on that score.
Since, however, they did not chance to inhabit an island from the
first, what they now do is this--they deposit their property in the
islands,[19] trusting to their command of the sea, and they suffer the
soil of Aticca to be ravaged without a sigh. To expend pity on that,
they know, would be to deprive themselves of other blessings still
more precious.[20]

[16] See Thuc. i. 143. Pericles says: "Reflect, if we were islanders,
who would be more invulnerable? Let us imagine that we are."

[17] Or, "are the more ready to cringe." See, for the word
{uperkhontai}, "Pol. Lac." viii. 2; Plat. "Crit." 53 E;
Rutherford, "New Phrynichus," p. 110.

[18] Or, "by the minority"; or, "by a handful of people."

[19] As they did during the Peloponnesian war; and earlier still,
before the battle of Salamis, in the case of that one island.

[20] Or, "but mean the forfeiture of others."

Further, states oligarchically governed are forced to ratify their
alliances and solemn oaths, and if they fail to abide by their
contracts, the offence, by whomsoever committed,[21] lies nominally at
the door of the oligarchs who entered upon the contract. But in the
case of engagements entered into by a democracy it is open to the
People to throw the blame on the single individual who spoke in favour