Dio Chrysostom: Peace, which everybody welcomes

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

Greek and Roman writers on war and peace

Dio Chystostom: Greed leads to internal strife and foreign wars

Dio Chrysostom: On the fate of states educated only for war

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Dio Chrysostom
Thirty-First Discourse: To the People of Rhodes
Translated by J.W. Cohoon and H. Lamar Crosby

….you will not claim that you have heavier expenses than had the men of those earlier times, since in that period there were expenditures for every purpose for which they are now made….But in these days the heaviest outlays of those borne in earlier times do not exist. For instance, their expenditures for war, seeing that they were almost continually at war and rarely, if ever, had a respite, are, in my opinion, not to be brought into comparison with those which are made in times of peace.

…with them the walls are neglected because of their condition of peace and servitude, one of which everybody welcomes, to wit, peace….

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Thirty-Fourth Discourse: Second Tarsic Discourse

…to show oneself to be honorable and magnanimous is rightly regarded as inexpressibly valuable. For to vie with the whole world in behalf of justice and virtue, and to take the initiative in friendship and harmony, and in these respects to surpass and prevail over all others, is the noblest of all victories and the safest too. But to seek by any and every means to maintain ascendancy in a conflict befits blooded game-cocks rather than men.