Athenians at that time, appeared to be dealing harshly with certain
people, all the rest, even such as had no complaint against Athens,
thought proper to side with the injured parties in a war against her.
So, when the Lacedaemonians became masters and succeeded to your empire,
on their attempting to encroach and make oppressive innovations,
[Footnote: The Spartans, whose severe military discipline rendered them
far the best soldiers in Greece, were totally unfit to manage the
empire, at the head of which they found themselves after the humiliation
of Athens. Their attempt to force an oligarchy upon every dependent
state was an unwise policy, which made them generally odious. The
decemvirates of Lysander, and the governors ([Greek: _armostai_])
established in various Greek cities to maintain Lacedaemonian influence,
were regarded as instruments of tyranny. It was found that Spartan
governors and generals, when away from home, gave loose to their vicious
inclinations, as if to indemnify themselves for the strictness of
domestic discipline. It became a maxim in their politics, that the end
justified the means. The most flagrant proof was given by the seizure of
the Cadmea at Thebes; a measure, which led to a formidable confederacy
against Sparta, and brought her to the verge of destruction.] a general
war was declared against them, even by such as had no cause of
complaint. But wherefore mention other people? We ourselves and the
Lacedaemonians, although at the outset we could not allege any natural
injuries, thought proper to make war for the injustice that we saw done
to our neighbors. Yet all the faults committed by the Spartans in those
thirty years, and by our ancestors in the seventy, are less, men of
Athens, than the wrongs which, in thirteen incomplete years that Philip
has been uppermost, [Footnote: _I. e._ in power; but, as Smead, an
American editor, truly observes, [Greek: _epipolyxei_] has a
contemptuous signification, Jacobs: _oben schwimmt_. The thirteen
years are reckoned from the time when Philip's interference in Thessaly