enemy. Much more truly may the imputation be retorted on those who
wrongfully appropriate their neighbours' goods and put to death those
who have done no wrong. These are they who cause our adversaries to
grow and multiply, and who in very truth are traitors, not to their
friends only, but to themselves, spurred on by sordid love of gain.

[17] Or, "the peacemaker, the healer of differences, the cementer of
new alliances, cannot," etc.

"I might prove the truth of what I say in many ways, but I beg you to
look at the matter thus. With which condition of affairs here in
Athens do you think will Thrasybulus and Anytus and the other exiles
be the better pleased? That which I have pictured as desirable, or
that which my colleagues yonder are producing? For my part I cannot
doubt but that, as things now are, they are saying to themselves, 'Our
allies muster thick and fast.' But were the real strength, the pith
and fibre of this city, kindly disposed to us, they would find it an
uphill task even to get a foothold anywhere in the country.

"Then, with regard to what he said of me and my propensity to be for
ever changing sides, let me draw your attention to the following
facts. Was it not the people itself, the democracy, who voted the
constitution of the Four Hundred? This they did, because they had
learned to think that the Lacedaemonians would trust any other form of
government rather than a democracy. But when the efforts of Lacedaemon
were not a whit relaxed, when Aristoteles, Melanthius, and
Aristarchus,[18] and the rest of them acting as generals, were plainly
minded to construct an intrenched fortress on the mole for the purpose
of admitting the enemy, and so getting the city under the power of
themselves and their associates;[19] because I got wind of these