And yet our allies1 have been only too zealous in advising you that you must give up Messene and make peace. Because of this they merit your indignation far more than those who revolted2 from you at the beginning. For the latter, when they had forsaken your friendship, destroyed their own cities, plunging them into civil strife and massacres and vicious forms of government.3 These men, on the other hand, come here to inflict injury upon us;
1 Especially the Corinthians. See Introduction.
2 The Arcadians had joined the Thebans in invading Sparta. The Argives, Eleans, and Achaeans had also forsaken Sparta and gone over partly or wholly to the Thebans.
3 Such disturbances and changes of government took place about this time in Arcadia, Argos, Sicyon, Elis, and Phlius. See Xen. Hell. 7.1-4. By vicious forms of government Archidamus probably refers to the democracies which in various places had been set up instead of the earlier oligarchies.
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