Contrast of the Aetolian Policy
"All Greeks indeed have need to be on the alert
note
for the crisis which is coming on: but Lacedaemonians above all. For why was it, do you
suppose, men of Sparta, that your ancestors,
when Xerxes sent an ambassador to your town demanding
earth and water, thrust the man into a well, and, throwing earth upon him, bade him take back word to Xerxes
-- 597 --
that he had got from the Lacedaemonians what he had
demanded from them,—earth and water? Why was it again,
do you suppose, that Leonidas and his men
started forth to a voluntary and certain death?
Was it not that they might have the glory of being the
forlorn hope, not only of their own freedom, but of that
of all Greece also? And it would indeed be a worthy action
for descendants of such heroes as these to make a league
with the barbarians now, and to serve with them; and
to war against Epirotes, Achaeans, Acarnanians, Boeotians,
Thessalians, and in fact against nearly every Greek state
except Aetolians! To these last it is habitual to act thus:
and to regard nothing as disgraceful, so long only as it is
accompanied by an opportunity of plunder. note It is not so,
however, with you. And what must we expect these people to
do, now that they have obtained the support of the Roman
alliance? For when they obtained an accession of strength
and support from the Illyrians, they at once set about acts of
piracy at sea, and treacherously seized Pylus; while by land
they stormed the city of Cleitor, and sold the Cynethans into
slavery. Once before they made a treaty with Antigonus, as I
said just now, for the destruction of the Achaean and Acarnanian races; and now they have done the same with Rome
for the destruction of all Greece.
