Book 3
and not, after giving pleasure to others, to incur infamy for it yourselves. For it is an easy matter to take away our lives, but a difficult one to wipe out the disgrace of it;
since we are not enemies, that you should justly take vengeance on us, but men well disposed towards you, and who went to war with you only on compulsion. You would judge the case therefore rightly, if you both granted us personal security, and considered beforehand that you received us by our own consent, and while holding forth our hands to you—and the law of the Greeks is not to kill such—and, moreover, after our being all along your benefactors.
For look to the sepulchres of your fathers, whom, after being slain by the Medes, and buried in our country, we used to honour every year at the public expense with both garments and other things that are usual, and by offering first-fruits of all that our land produced in its season; as friends from a friendly country, and as allies to our former companions in arms.
But you would do the contrary of this, should you decide unjustly. For consider: Pausanias buried them with a conviction that he was laying them in a friendly land, and amongst men of that character; but you, if you kill us, and make the Plataean territory a part of the Theban, what else will you do but leave your fathers and kinsmen in a hostile country, and amongst their murderers, unhonoured with the gifts which they now receive? And further, you will condemn to slavery the land in which the Greeks won their freedom; will desolate the temples of the gods to whom they prayed, before conquering the Medes; and will take away our ancestral sacrifices from those who founded and instituted them.
This were not to your credit, Lacedaemonians, nor to offend against the general principles of the Greeks and your own forefathers, nor to destroy us, your benefactors, for other men's hatred of us, without having been wronged yourselves; but rather, to spare us, and relent in your hearts, having taken a rational pity on us; reflecting not only on the dreadful nature of the things we should suffer, but also on the character of the sufferers, and how misfortune admits not of calculating on whom it may one day fall, even without his deserving it.
We then, as is suitable for us, and as our need induces us to do, entreat you, with invocations to the gods who are worshipped at the same altar, and by all the Greeks in common, that we may prevail on you in these things; pleading the oaths which your fathers swore, we pray that you will not be unmindful of them: we beseech you by your fathers' tombs, and appeal for aid to the dead, that we may not come under the power of the Thebans, nor those who are dearest to them be given up to those who are most hateful. We remind you, too, of that day on which we performed the most glorious things in their company, and yet now on this day are in danger of suffering the most dreadful.
But, to bring our speech to a close—a thing which is necessary, and at the same time hard for men so circumstanced, because the peril of our life approaches with it—we now say, in conclusion, that we did not surrender our city to the Thebans, (for before that we would have preferred to die the most inglorious death—that of famine,) but confided in and capitulated to you. And it were but fair, that, if we do not persuade you, you should restore us to the same position, and let us ourselves take the risk that befalls us.
At the same time we solemnly beseech you, that we who are Plataeans, and who showed the greatest zeal for the cause of the Greeks, may not be given up, suppliants as we are, out of your hands and your good faith, Lacedaemonians, to Thebans, who are our bitterest enemies; but that you would become our preservers, and not, while you are giving freedom to the rest of the Greeks, bring utter destruction upon us.
To this effect spoke the Plataeans. The Thebans, fearing that the Lacedaemonians might somewhat relent in consequence of their words, came forward, and said that they also wished to address them, since, contrary to their expectation, the Plataeans had had a longer speech allowed them than a simple answer to the question. So when they had given them leave, they spoke as follows:
"We should not have asked permission to make this address, if the Plataeans, on their part, had briefly answered the question put to them, and had not turned upon us and delivered an invective; while at the same time they made a long defence of themselves, beyond the limits of the present question, and on points that had never been the grounds of any charge, together with a panegyric for things which no one found fault with. But as it is, we must answer their accusations, and refute their self-praises; that neither our disgrace nor their reputation may assist them, but that you may hear the truth on both points, and so decide.
We quarrelled then with them in the first instance, because, on our settling Plataea at a later period than the rest of Boeotia, and some other places with it, of which we took possession after driving out their mixed population, these men did not think fit, as had been first arranged, to submit to our supremacy, but, apart from the rest of the Boeotians, offended against the principles of their fathers, and when they were being compelled to observe them, went over to the Athenians, in conjunction with whom they did us many injuries, for which they also suffered in return.
"Again, when the barbarian came against Greece, they say that they were the only part of the Boeotians that did not Medize; and it is on this point that they most pride themselves, and abuse us.
But we say that they did not Me-dize, because the Athenians did not either; but that in the same way, when the Athenians afterwards attacked the Greeks, they were the only people that Atticized.
Yet look in what political condition we respectively did this. For our city happened at that time to be governed neither by an oligarchy The term ἰσόνομος relates to the equality of all the citizens with one another, as far as related to their private disputes and private injuries; whereas under the worst form of oligarchy, which was called δυναστεία, those who were possessed of political power were also above the law in private matters, and could oppress their fellow-citizens at their pleasure. See Aristotle, Politics, iv. 5. 2. —Arnold. with equal laws, nor by a democracy; but what is most opposed to laws and the best form of government, and comes nearest to [the rule of] a tyrant, a dominant party of a few individuals had the administration of affairs.
And so they, hoping to hold it still more surely if the cause of the Mede were triumphant, kept down the populace by force, and introduced him; and the whole city was not its own master when it so acted; nor is it right to reproach it for what it did amiss when not in the enjoyment of its laws.
At any rate, after the Mede had retreated, and it had regained its laws, you ought to consider, that when the Athenians subsequently attacked the rest of Greece, and endeavoured to bring our country under their power, and by the aid of faction were already in possession of the greater part of it, we fought and conquered them at Coronea, and liberated Boeotia, and are now heartily joining in the liberation of the other states, by furnishing horses, and such a force as no other of the allies do. With regard, then, to our Medizing, such is the defence we make
"But that it is you, [Plataeans,] who have both done more injury to Greece, and are more deserving of extreme punishment, we will now attempt to prove. It was for vengeance against us, you say, that you became allies and fellow-citizens of the Athenians.
Then you ought to have introduced them for aid against us alone, and not to have joined with them in attacking others; such a course having certainly been open to you, in case of your being at all led on by the Athenians against your will, since the confederacy against the Mede had already been formed by these Lacedaemonians here, which you yourselves bring forward most prominently [in your own defence]. Surely this was strong enough to divert us from attacking you, and, what is the greatest advantage, to enable you to take counsel in security. But of your own accord, and not by compulsion, you still took the part of the Athenians by preference.
And you say that it had been base for you to betray your benefactors; but much more base and criminal was it so utterly to betray the whole body of the Greeks, with whom you confederated, than to give up the Athenians alone, who were enslaving Greece, while the others were its liberators.
And it was no equal return of favour that you made them, nor one free from disgrace. For you introduced them, as you say, when you were being injured; but you became co-operators with them in injuring others. And yet not to return equal favours is more disgraceful than to fail in those which, though justly due, will be returned in furtherance of injustice.
"You showed then plainly, that not even at that time was it for the sake of the Greeks that you alone did not Medize, but because the Athenians did not either, and because you wished to side with them, and against the rest.
And now you claim to derive assistance from the circumstances in which you acted well through the influence of others. That however is not reasonable; but as you chose the Athenians, stand the brunt of the struggle with them, and do not bring forward the league that was then made, as though you ought to be spared from regard to that.
For you deserted it, and in violation of it joined in enslaving the Aeginetans, and some others who had entered into it, rather than prevented their being enslaved; and that too not against your will, but while enjoying the same laws as you have to the present time, and without any one's compelling you, as they did us.
Besides, the last proposal made to you before you were blockaded, that you should remain unmolested on condition of your aiding neither side, you did not accept. Who, then, could be more justly hated by the Greeks than you, who assumed an honourable bearing for their injury? And the goodness which you say you once exhibited, you have now shown to be not your proper character; but what your nature always wished, has been truly proved against you; for you accompanied the Athenians when they were walking in the path of injustice.
With regard then to our involuntary Medizing, and your voluntary Atticizing, such are the proofs we have to offer.
"As for the last injuries which you say that you received, namely, that we came against your city in time of peace and at a holy time of the month, we are of opinion that neither in this point did we act more wrongly than you.
If, indeed, we came against your city by our own design, and fought, and ravaged the land as enemies, we are guilty. But if men who were the first among you, both in property and family, wishing to stop you from your foreign connexion, and restore you to your hereditary principles common to all the Boeotians, voluntarily called us to their aid, how are we guilty? Retorting the remark of the Plataeans, ch. 55. 5,οὐχ οἱ ἑπόμενοι αἴτιοι—ἀλλ᾽ οἱ ἄγοντες. For it is those who lead that are the transgressors, rather than those who follow.
But neither did they do wrong, in our judgment, nor did we; but being citizens, like yourselves, and having more at stake, by opening their walls to us and introducing us into their city in a friendly, not in a hostile, manner, they wished the bad among you no longer i. e. understanding χείρους again after μᾶλλον, as Poppo explains it. Bloomfield supposes that μᾶλλον here assumes the nature of an adjective; and thus μᾶλλον γενέσθαι will mean, to be uppermost, to have the upper hand,— to be [in power] rather than others. But the passage which he quotes, ch. 82. 2, as an instance of such a usage, is not, I think, sufficiently parallel to justify this interpretation. to become worse, and the good to have their deserts; being reformers of your principles, and not depriving the state of your persons, but restoring you to your kinsmen; making you foes to no one, but friends alike to all.
"And we gave you a proof of our not having acted in a hostile manner; for we injured no one, but made proclamation, that whoever wished to be governed according to the hereditary principles of all the Boeotians, should come over to us.
And you gladly came, and made an agreement with us, and remained quiet at first; but afterwards, when you perceived that we were few in number, even supposing that we might be thought to have acted somewhat unfairly in entering your city without the consent of your populace, you did not requite us in the same manner—by not proceeding to extreme measures in action, but persuading us by words to retire—but you attacked us in violation of your agreement. And as for those whom you slew in battle, we do not grieve for them so much (for they suffered according to law—of a certain kind); but in the case of those whom you lawlessly butchered while holding forth their hands, and when you had given them quarter, and had subsequently promised us not to kill them, how can you deny that you acted atrociously?
And now, after having perpetrated in a short time these three crimes—the breach of your agreement, the subsequent murder of the men, and the falsification of your promise not to kill them, in case we did no injury to your property in the country—you still assert that it is we who are the transgressors; and yourselves claim to escape paying the penalty for your crimes. No, not if these your judges come to a right decision; but for all of them shall you be punished.
And now, Lacedaemonians, it is with this view that we have gone so far into these subjects—both with reference to you and to ourselves—that you may know that you will justly pass sentence on them, and we, that we have still more righteously been avenged on them;
and that you may not relent on hearing of their virtues in times long gone by (if, indeed, they ever had any); for though these ought to be of service to the injured, to such as are doing any thing base they should be a reason for double punishment, because they do amiss in opposition to their proper character. Nor let them derive benefit from their lamentations and pitiful wailing, while they appeal to the tombs of your fathers and their own destitution.
For we show you, on the other hand, that our youth who were butchered by them received far more dreadful treatment; some of whose fathers fell at Coronea, in bringing Boeotia into connexion with you; while others, left lonely in their old age, and their houses desolate, prefer to you a far more just request for vengeance on these men.
And with regard to pity, it is those men who suffer undeservedly that better deserve to receive it; but those who suffer justly, as these do, deserve, on the contrary, to be rejoiced over.
Their present destitution, then, they have incurred by their own conduct; for they wilfully rejected the better alliance. Nor did they thus outrage all law in consequence of having first suffered at our hands, but from deciding under the influence of hatred, rather than of justice. And they have not now given us proportionate satisfaction for their crimes; for they will suffer by a legal sentence, and not while holding forth their hands after battle, as they say, but after surrendering to you on definite terms to take their trial.
Avenge therefore, Lacedaemonians, the law of the Greeks which has been violated by these men. And to us who have been treated in contempt of all law return a due gratitude for the zeal we have shown; and let us not lose our place in your favour through their words, but give the Greeks a proof that you will not institute contests of words, but of deeds; for which a short statement is sufficient when they are good; but when they are done amiss, harangues dressed out with imposing language serve as veils for them.
But if ruling states should, like you in the present instance, summarily pronounce their decisions on all offenders, men would be less disposed to seek for fine words as a screen for unjust actions.
To this effect then spoke the Thebans. The Lacedaemonian judges, thinking that the question, Whether they had received any service from them during the war, would be a fair one for them to put, because they had all along requested them, as they said, to remain quiet according to the original covenant of Pausanias, after the [retreat of the] Mede; and when afterwards they made to them the proposal which they did before they were besieged—to be neutral, according to the terms of that compact—in consequence of their not receiving it, they considered that on the strength of their own just wish they were now released from covenant with them, and had received evil at their hands. Accordingly, bringing each of them forward, and asking the same question, Whether they had done the Lacedaemonians and allies any service in the war, when they said they had not, they led them away and killed them, not excepting one.
Of the Plataeans themselves they slew not less than two hundred, and of the Athenians twenty-five, who were besieged with them;