Now it was clear before that Lacedaemon entertained designs against us; it is still more clear now.

The treaty provides that we shall mutually submit our differences to legal settlement, and that we shall meanwhile each keep what we have.

Yet the Lacedaemonians never yet made us any such offer, never yet would accept from us any such offer; on the contrary, they wish complaints to be settled by war instead of by negotiation; and in the end we find them here dropping the tone of expostulation and adopting that of command.

They order us to raise the siege of Potidaea, to let Aegina be independent, to revoke the Megara decree; and they conclude with an ultimatum warning us to leave the Hellenes independent.
I hope that you will none of you think that we shall be going to war for a trifle if we refuse to revoke the Megara decree, which appears in front of their complaints, and the revocation of which is to save us from war, or let any feeling of self-reproach linger in your minds, as if you went to war for slight cause.

Why, this trifle contains the whole seal and trial of your resolution.