May I have the pleasure, he said, of hearing your opinion?
Both should be forbidden, in my judgment; I would take the [B]annual produce and no more. Shall I tell you why?
Pray do.
nor Hellenic territory devastated. Why, you see, there is a difference in the names ‘discord’ and ‘war,’ and I imagine that there is also a difference in their natures; the one is expressive of what is internal and domestic, the other of what is external and foreign; and the first of the two is termed discord, and only the second, war. 167
That is a very proper distinction, he replied.
[C] And may I not observe with equal propriety that the Hellenic race is all united together by ties of blood and friendship, and alien and strange to the barbarians?
Very good, he said.
And therefore when Hellenes fight with barbarians and barbarians with Hellenes, they will be described by us as being at war when they fight, and by nature enemies, and this kind of antagonism should be called war; Hellenic warfare is only a kind of discord not intended to be lasting.but when Hellenes fight with one another we shall say that Hellas is then in a state of disorder and discord, they being by nature friends; [D]and such enmity is to be called discord.
I agree.
Consider then, I said, when that which we have acknowledged to be discord occurs, and a city is divided, if both parties destroy the lands and burn the houses of one another, how wicked does the strife appear! No true lover of his country would bring himself to tear in pieces his own nurse and mother: There might be reason in the conqueror depriving the conquered of their harvest, but still they would [E]have the idea of peace in their hearts and would not mean to go on fighting for ever.