History of The Peloponnesian War - Book III   

whose slaughter Hellenic law forbids, and who besides were always your
benefactors. Look at the sepulchres of your fathers, slain by the
Medes and buried in our country, whom year by year we honoured with
garments and all other dues, and the first-fruits of all that our land
produced in their season, as friends from a friendly country and
allies to our old companions in arms. Should you not decide aright,
your conduct would be the very opposite to ours. Consider only:
Pausanias buried them thinking that he was laying them in friendly
ground and among men as friendly; but you, if you kill us and make the
Plataean territory Theban, will leave your fathers and kinsmen in a
hostile soil and among their murderers, deprived of the honours
which they now enjoy. What is more, you will enslave the land in which
the freedom of the Hellenes was won, make desolate the temples of
the gods to whom they prayed before they overcame the Medes, and
take away your ancestral sacrifices from those who founded and
instituted them.
"It were not to your glory, Lacedaemonians, either to offend in this
way against the common law of the Hellenes and against your own
ancestors, or to kill us your benefactors to gratify another's
hatred without having been wronged yourselves: it were more so to
spare us and to yield to the impressions of a reasonable compassion;
reflecting not merely on the awful fate in store for us, but also on
the character of the sufferers, and on the impossibility of predicting
how soon misfortune may fall even upon those who deserve it not. We,
as we have a right to do and as our need impels us, entreat you,
calling aloud upon the gods at whose common altar all the Hellenes
worship, to hear our request, to be not unmindful of the oaths which
your fathers swore, and which we now plead- we supplicate you by the
tombs of your fathers, and appeal to those that are gone to save us
from falling into the hands of the Thebans and their dearest friends
from being given up to their most detested foes. We also remind you of
that day on which we did the most glorious deeds, by your fathers'
sides, we who now on this are like to suffer the most dreadful fate.
Finally, to do what is necessary and yet most difficult for men in our
situation- that is, to make an end of speaking, since with that
ending the peril of our lives draws near- in conclusion we say that
we did not surrender our city to the Thebans (to that we would have
preferred inglorious starvation), but trusted in and capitulated to
you; and it would be just, if we fail to persuade you, to put us
back in the same position and let us take the chance that falls to us.
And at the same time we adjure you not to give us up- your
suppliants, Lacedaemonians, out of your hands and faith, Plataeans
foremost of the Hellenic patriots, to Thebans, our most hated
enemies- but to be our saviours, and not, while you free the rest of
the Hellenes, to bring us to destruction."
Such were the words of the Plataeans. The Thebans, afraid that the
Lacedaemonians might be moved by what they had heard, came forward and
said that they too desired to address them, since the Plataeans had,
against their wish, been allowed to speak at length instead of being
confined to a simple answer to the question. Leave being granted,
the Thebans spoke as follows:
"We should never have asked to make this speech if the Plataeans
on their side had contented themselves with shortly answering the
question, and had not turned round and made charges against us,
coupled with a long defence of themselves upon matters outside the
present inquiry and not even the subject of accusation, and with
praise of what no one finds fault with. However, since they have
done so, we must answer their charges and refute their self-praise, in
order that neither our bad name nor their good may help them, but that
you may hear the real truth on both points, and so decide.
"The origin of our quarrel was this. We settled Plataea some time
after the rest of Boeotia, together with other places out of which
we had driven the mixed population. The Plataeans not choosing to
recognize our supremacy, as had been first arranged, but separating