Gelon, I say, made these offers, and the envoy of the Athenians, answering before that of the Lacedaemonians, replied to him as follows: “O king of the Syracusans, it was not of a leader that Hellas was in want when it sent us to thee, but of an army. Thou however dost not set before us the hope that thou wilt send an army, except thou have the leadership of Hellas; and thou art striving how thou mayest become commander of the armies of Hellas. So long then as it was thy demand to be leader of the whole army of the Hellenes, it was sufficient for us Athenians to keep silence, knowing that the Lacedaemonian would be able to make defence even for us both; but now, since being repulsed from the demand for the whole thou art requesting to be commander of the naval force, we tell that thus it is:⁠—not even if the Lacedaemonian shall permit thee to be commander of it, will we permit thee; for this at least is our own, if the Lacedaemonians do not themselves desire to have it.