Because they wish to treat you with tenderness they do not allow you to take steps that must lead you to ruin.

Cleomedon lately pointed out, as the middle and safest way, to remain inactive, and abstain from taking up arms But that is not a middle way; it is no way at all.

For, besides the necessity of either embracing or rejecting the Roman alliance, what other consequence can ensue from such conduct, than that, while we show no steady attachment to either side, as if we waited the event with design to adapt our counsels to fortune, we shall become the prey of the conqueror?
Contemn not then, when it is spontaneously offered to your acceptance, what you ought to have solicited with your warmest prayers.

The free option between the two, which you have this day, you will not always have.

The same opportunity will not last long, nor will it frequently recur.