The feelings expressed in the speech above cited would also often find utterance from Athenian orators in the assembly; and it would not be difficult to produce parallel passages, in which these orators imply discontent on the part of the allies to be the natural state of things, such as Athens could not hope to escape. The speech here given shows that such feelings arise, almost inevitably, out of the uncomfortable relation of two governments, one supreme and the other subordinate. They are not the product of peculiar cruelty and oppression on the part of the Athenian democracy, as Mr. Mitford and so many others have sought to prove.
[92] See the important passage already adverted to in a prior note.
Thucyd. i, 40. οὐδὲ γὰρ ἡμεῖς Σαμίων ἀποστάντων ψῆφον προσεθέμεθα ἐναντίαν ὑμῖν, τῶν ἄλλων Πελοποννησίων δίχα ἐψηφισμένων εἰ χρὴ αὐτοῖς ἀμύνειν, φανερῶς δὲ ἀντείπομεν τοὺς προσήκοντας ξυμμάχους αὐτόν τινα κολάζειν.
[93] Thucyd. i. 33.
[94] Thucyd. i. 42.
[95] Thucyd. i, 38. ἡγεμόνες τε εἶναι καὶ τὰ εἰκότα θαυμάζεσθαι.
[96] Thucyd. i, 24, 25.
[97] Thucyd. i, 26. ἦλθον γὰρ ἐς τὴν Κέρκυραν οἱ τῶν Ἐπιδαμνίων φυγάδες, τάφους τε ἀποδεικνύντες καὶ ξυγγένειαν ἣν προϊσχόμενοι ἐδέοντο σφᾶς κατάγειν.
[98] Thucyd. i, 26.
[99] Thucyd. i, 28.