themselves to the question of their reception into your alliance. They
also talk of our being guilty of injustice, and their being the
victims of an unjustifiable war. It becomes necessary for us to
touch upon both these points before we proceed to the rest of what
we have to say, that you may have a more correct idea of the grounds
of our claim, and have good cause to reject their petition.
According to them, their old policy of refusing all offers of alliance
was a policy of moderation. It was in fact adopted for bad ends, not
for good; indeed their conduct is such as to make them by no means
desirous of having allies present to witness it, or of having the
shame of asking their concurrence. Besides, their geographical
situation makes them independent of others, and consequently the
decision in cases where they injure any lies not with judges appointed
by mutual agreement, but with themselves, because, while they seldom
make voyages to their neighbours, they are constantly being visited by
foreign vessels which are compelled to put in to Corcyra. In short,
the object that they propose to themselves, in their specious policy
of complete isolation, is not to avoid sharing in the crimes of
others, but to secure monopoly of crime to themselves--the licence of
outrage wherever they can compel, of fraud wherever they can elude,
and the enjoyment of their gains without shame. And yet if they were
the honest men they pretend to be, the less hold that others had
upon them, the stronger would be the light in which they might have
put their honesty by giving and taking what was just.

"But such has not been their conduct either towards others or
towards us. The attitude of our colony towards us has always been
one of estrangement and is now one of hostility; for, say they: 'We
were not sent out to be ill-treated.' We rejoin that we did not
found the colony to be insulted by them, but to be their head and to