Thucydides Quotes

Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by nature they desire to rule.

[5]I lived through the whole of it when I was of an age to appreciate what was going on and could apply my mind to an exact understanding of things. It so turned out that I was banished from my own country for twenty years after the Amphipolis campaign and thus had the time to study matters more closely; and as consequence of my exile I had access to activities on both sides, not least to those of the Peloponnesians. [6]I will therefore now relate the differences that arose after the ten-year war and the collapse of the treaty, and then the subsequent course of the war.

Make up your minds, therefore, to pay them back in their own coin, and do not make it look as though you who escape their machinations are less quick to react than they who started them.

(Corinthians:) Of all Hellenes, Lacedaemonians, you are the only people who never do anything: on the approach of an enemy you are content to defend yourselves against him, not by acts, but by intentions, and seek to overthrow him, not in the infancy but in the fulness of his strength.

(Book 1 Chapter 69.4)

(Corinthian:) And if we allow ourselves to be divided or are not united against them (Athenians) heart and soul — the whole confederacy and every nation and city in it — they will easily overpower us. It may seem a hard saying, but you may be sure that defeat means nothing but downright slavery,

and the bare mention of such a possibility is a disgrace to the Peloponnese: — shall so many states suffer at the hands of one? Men will say, some that we deserve our fate, others that we are too cowardly to resist: and we shall seem a degenerate race. For our fathers were the liberators of Hellas,but we cannot secure even our own liberty; and while we make a point of overthrowing the rule of a single man in this or that city, we allow a city which is a tyrant to be set up in the midst of us.

(Book 1 Chapter 122.2-3)

(Archidamus:) The allies of the Athenians are not less numerous; they pay them tribute too; and war is not an affair of arms, but of money which gives to arms their use, and which is needed above all things when a continental is fighting against a maritime power:

let us find money first, and then we may safely allow our minds to be excited by the speeches of our allies. We, on whom the future responsibility, whether for good or evil, will chiefly fall, should calmly reflect on the consequences which may follow.

(Book 1 Chapter 83.2-3)

But his (Pericles’) successors were more on an equality with one another, and, each one struggling to be first himself, they were ready to sacrifice the whole conduct of affairs to the whims of the people.

Such weakness in a great and imperial city led to many errors, of which the greatest was the Sicilian expedition; not that the Athenians miscalculated their enemy's power, but they themselves, instead of consulting for the interests of the expedition which they had sent out, were occupied in intriguing against one another for the leadership of the democracy, and not only hampered the operations of the army, but became embroiled, for the first time, at home.

And yet after they had lost in the Sicilian expedition the greater part of their fleet and army, and were now distracted by revolution, still they held out three years not only against their former enemies, but against the Sicilians who had combined with them, and against most of their own allies who had risen in revolt. Even when Cyrus the son of the King joined in the war and supplied the Peloponnesian fleet with money, they continued to resist, and were at last overthrown, not by their enemies, but by themselves and their own internal dissensions.

(Book 2 Chapter 65.10-12)

In their troubles they naturally called to mind a verse which the elder men among them declared to have been current long ago: — A Dorian war will come and a plague with it.

There was a dispute about the precise expression some saying that limos, a famine, and not loimos, a plague, was the original word. Nevertheless, as might have been expected, for men's memories reflected their sufferings, the argument in favour of loimos prevailed at the time. But if ever in future years another Dorian war arises which happens to be accompanied by a famine, they will probably repeat the verse in the other form.

(Book 2 Chapter 54.2-3)

(Peloponnesian Generals:) The skill (ἐπιστήμη) of your enemies which you so greatly dread, if united with courage (ἀνδρείαν), may be able in the moment of danger to remember and execute the lesson which it has learned, but without courage (εὐψυχίας) no skill (τέχνη) can do anything at such a time.

τῶνδε δὲ ἡ ἐπιστήμη, ἣν μάλιστα φοβεῖσθε, ἀνδρείαν μὲν ἔχουσα καὶ μνήμην ἕξει ἐν τῷ δεινῷ ἐπιτελεῖν ἃ ἔμαθεν, ἄνευ δὲ εὐψυχίας οὐδεμία τέχνη πρὸς τοὺς κινδύνους ἰσχύει.

For fear makes men forget, and skill which cannot fight (ἀλκῆς) is useless.

φόβος γὰρ μνήμην ἐκπλήσσει, τέχνη δὲ ἄνευ ἀλκῆς οὐδὲν ὠφελεῖ.

(Book 2 Chapter 87.4)

(Pericles:) And do not imagine that you are fighting about a simple issue, freedom or slavery; you have an empire to lose, and there is the danger to which the hatred of your imperial rule has exposed you.

Neither can you resign your power, if, at this crisis, any timorous or inactive spirit is for thus playing the honest man. For by this time your empire has become a tyranny which in the opinion of mankind may have been unjustly gained, but which cannot be safely surrendered.

(Book 2 Chapter 63.1-2)

Thus both in the movement along the coast and in the naval engagement which ensued, the Syracusans proved themselves quite a match for the Athenians, and at length made their way into the harbour at Messenè.

His (Themistocles) mind was turned in this direction, as I conceive, from observing that the King's armament had met with fewer obstacles by sea than by land.The Piraeus appeared to him to be of more real consequence than the upper city. He was fond of telling the Athenians that if ever they were hard pressed on land they should go down to the Piraeus and fight the world at sea.

(Book 1 Chapter 93.7)

Themistocles was a man whose natural force was unmistakable; this was the quality for which he was distinguished above all other men;from his own native acuteness, and without any study either before or at the time, he was the ablest judge of the course to be pursued in a sudden emergency,and could best divine what was likely to happen in the remotest future. Whatever he had in hand he had the power of explaining to others, and even where he had no experience he was quite competent to form a sufficient judgment;no one could foresee with equal clearness the good or evil event which was hidden in the future.In a word, Themistocles, by natural power of mind and with the least preparation, was of all men the best able to extemporise the right thing to be done.

(Book 1 Chapter 138.3)

When they (Lacedaemonians) had retreated, the Athenians posted guards to keep watch both by land and sea, a precaution which they maintained throughout the war. They then passed a decree reserving of the treasure in the Acropolis a thousand talents: this sum was set apart and was not to be expended unless the enemy attacked the city with a fleet and they had to defend it. In any other case, he who brought forward or put to the vote a proposal to touch the money was to be punished with death.

They also resolved to set apart yearly a hundred triremes, the finest of the year, and to appoint trierarchs for them; these they were only to use at the same time with the money, and in the same emergency.

(Book 2 Chapter 24)

The causes which led to the defections of the allies were of different kinds, the principal being their neglect to pay the tribute or to furnish ships, and, in some cases, failure of military service. For the Athenians were exacting and oppressive, using coercive measures towards men who were neither willing nor accustomed to work hard.

And for various reasons they soon began to prove less agreeable leaders than at first. They no longer fought upon an equality with the rest of the confederates, and they had no difficulty in reducing them when they revolted.

Now the allies brought all this upon themselves; for the majority of them disliked military service and absence from home, and so they agreed to contribute their share of the expense instead of ships. Whereby the Athenian navy was proportionally increased, while they themselves were always untrained and unprepared for war when they revolted.

(Book 1 Chapter 99)