present conquests.  I am certain that to achieve what stands achieved to-day, you would willingly have foregone the gain of fifty times that paltry sum.  To me it seems that to lose your present fortune were a more serious loss than never to have won it; since surely it is harder to be poor after being rich than never to 28 have tasted wealth at all, and more painful to sink to the level of a subject, being a king, then never to have worn a crown.

“You cannot forget that your present vassals were not persuaded to become your subjects out of love for you, but by sheer force; and but for some restraining dread they would endeavour to be free again to-morrow.  And how do you propose to stimulate their sense of awe, and keep them in good behaviour towards you?  Shall they see our soldiers so disposed towards you that a word on your part would suffice to keep them now, or if necessary would bring them back again to-morrow? while others hearing from us a hundred stories in your praise, hasten to present themselves at your desire?  Or will you drive them to conclude adversely, that through mistrust of what has happened now, no second set of soldiers will come to help you, for even these troops of ours are more their friends than yours?  And indeed it was not because they fell short of us in numbers that they became your subjects, but from lack of proper leaders.  There is a danger, therefore, now lest they should choose as their protectors some of us who regard ourselves as wronged by you, or even better men than us—­the Lacedaemonians themselves; supposing our soldiers undertake to serve with more enthusiasm, if the debt you owe to them be first exacted; and the Lacedaemonians, who need their services, consent to this request.  It is plain, at any rate, that the Thracians, now prostrate at your feet, would display far more enthusiasm in attacking, than in assisting you; for your mastery means their slavery, and your defeat their liberty.

“Again, the country is now yours, and from this time forward you have to make provision for what is yours; and how will you best secure it an immunity from ill?  Either these soldiers receive their dues and go, leaving a legacy of peace behind, or they stay and occupy an enemy’s country, whilst you endeavour, by aid of a still larger army, to open a new campaign and turn them out; and your new troops will also need provisions.  Or again, which will be the greater drain on your purse? to pay off your present debt, or, with that still owing, to bid for more troops, and of a better quality?

“Heracleides, as he used to prove to me, finds the sum excessive.  But 35 surely it is a far less serious thing for you to take and pay it back to-day than it would have been to pay the tithe of it, before we came to you; since the limit between less and more is no fixed number, but depends on the relative capacity of payer and recipient, and your yearly income now is larger than the whole property which you possessed in earlier days.