John Lewis Gaddis Quote

The Corinthians began by blaming the Spartans for the Athenian long walls. Their bluntness of perception had allowed Themistocles’ trickery decades earlier, from which Athens concluded that the Spartans see, but do not care. You, Spartans, of all the Hellenes are alone inactive, and defend yourselves not by doing anything but by looking as if you would do something; you alone wait till the power of an enemy is becoming twice its original size, instead of crushing it in its infancy. And yet the world used to say that you were to be depended upon; but in your case, we fear, it said more than the truth. The Athenians, in contrast, were adventurous beyond their power, and daring beyond their judgment. The speed with which they acted enabled them to call a thing hoped for a thing got. They take no rest themselves and . . . give none to others. For these reasons, the Spartans should aid the Potidaeans by invading Attica. Not to do so would drive the rest of us in despair to some other alliance. 27