Now if these assaults on the rights of Hellas had been made in the dark, you might be unacquainted with the facts, and it would be our duty to enlighten you.

As it is, long speeches are not needed where you see servitude accomplished for some of us, meditated for others--in particular for our allies--and prolonged preparations in the aggressor against the hour of war.

Or what, pray, is the meaning of their reception of Corcyra by fraud, and their holding it against us by force?
what of the siege of Potidaea ?--places one of which lies most conveniently for any action against the Thracian towns; while the other would have contributed a very large navy to the Peloponnesians?
"For all this you are responsible.

You it was who first allowed them to fortify their city after the Median war, and afterwards to erect the long walls--you who, then and now, are always depriving of freedom not only those whom they have enslaved, but also those who have as yet been your allies.

For the true author of the subjugation of a people is not so much the immediate agent, as the power which permits it having the means to prevent it; particularly if that power aspires to the glory of being the liberator of Hellas.