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62.
If you shrink before the exertions which the
war makes necessary, and fear that after all they may not have a happy
result, you know the reasons by which I have often demonstrated to you the
groundlessness of your apprehension.
If those are not enough, I will now reveal an advantage arising from the
greatness of your dominion, which I think has never yet suggested itself to
you, which I never mentioned in my previous speeches, and which has so bold
a sound that I should scarce adventure it now, were it not for the unnatural
depression which I see around me.
[2]
You perhaps think that your empire extends only over your allies; I will
declare to you the truth.
The visible field of action has two parts, land and sea.
In the whole of one of these you are completely supreme, not merely as far
as you use it at present, but also to what further extent you may think fit:
in fine, your naval resources are such that your vessels may go where they
please, without the king or any other nation on earth being able to stop
them.
[3]
So that although you may think it a great privation to lose the use of your
land and houses, still you must see that this power is something widely
different; and instead of fretting on their account, you should really regard them in
the light of the gardens and other accessories that embellish a great
fortune, and as, in comparison, of little moment.
You should know too that liberty preserved by your efforts will easily
recover for us what we have lost, while, the knee once bowed, even what you
have will pass from you.
Your fathers receiving these possessions not from others, but from
themselves, did not let slip what their labor had acquired, but delivered
them safe to you; and in this respect at least you must prove yourselves their equals,
remembering that to lose what one has got is more disgraceful than to be
baulked in getting, and you must confront your enemies not merely with
spirit but with disdain.
[4]
Confidence indeed a blissful ignorance can impart, ay, even to a coward's
breast, but disdain is the privilege of those who, like us, have been
assured by reflection of their superiority to their adversary.
[5]
And where the chances are the same, knowledge fortifies courage by the
contempt which is its consequence, its trust being placed, not in hope,
which is the prop of the desperate, but in a judgment grounded upon existing
resources, whose anticipations are more to be depended upon.
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References (49 total)
- Commentary references to this page
(14):
- Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Oedipus at Colonus, 1007
- Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Antigone, 167
- Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Antigone, 35
- Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Electra, 1364
- E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 3, 3.36
- E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 6, 6.41
- T. G. Tucker, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 8, 8.46
- T. G. Tucker, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 8, 8.92
- C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 4, CHAPTER X
- C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 4, CHAPTER CXXVI
- C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 4, CHAPTER L
- C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 4, CHAPTER LXII
- C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 4, CHAPTER LXV
- C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 4, CHAPTER LXXIV
- Cross-references to this page
(8):
- Herbert Weir Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges, THE CASES
- Herbert Weir Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges, ADVERBIAL COMPLEX SENTENCES (2193-2487)
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 1.3.1
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 1.3.2
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 3.2.3
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 3.6.1
- William Watson Goodwin, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb, Chapter IV
- Sir Richard C. Jebb, Selections from the Attic Orators, 34.9
- Cross-references in notes to this page
(1):
- Plato, Republic, Plat. Rep. 1.331a
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(26):
- LSJ, δηλ-όω
- LSJ, ἀποφαίνω
- LSJ, ἀτυ^χ-έω
- LSJ, αὔχ-ημα
- LSJ, ἐγκαλλώπ-ισμα
- LSJ, ἐλασσ-όω
- LSJ, ἐνθυ_μ-έομαι
- LSJ, ἐχυ^ρ-ός
- LSJ, εἰκός
- LSJ, φέρω
- LSJ, γε
- LSJ, ἤ
- LSJ, ἰσχ-ύς
- LSJ, καταφρόν-ημα
- LSJ, καταφρόν-ησις
- LSJ, κηπ-ίον
- LSJ, κομπ-ώδης
- LSJ, ὁμόσε
- LSJ, οὐ
- LSJ, πιστ-εύω
- LSJ, πρίν
- LSJ, προσ-κτάομαι
- LSJ, προσποί-ησις
- LSJ, σύνεσις
- LSJ, ὑπέρφρων
- LSJ, χαλεπ-ός
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