Book 3
For being none of your enemies but well-willers and such as have entered into the war upon constraint, you cannot put us to death with justice.
Therefore, if you will judge uncorruptly, you ought to secure our persons and to remember that you received us by our own voluntary submission and with hands upheld (and it is the law among Grecians not to put such to death), besides that we have from time to time been beneficial to you. For look upon the sepulchres of your fathers whom, slain by the Medes and buried in this territory of ours, we have yearly honoured at the public charge both with vestments and other rites; and of such things as our land hath produced, we have offered unto them the first fruits of it all, as friends in an amicable land and confederates use to do to those that have formerly been their fellows in arms.
But now by a wrong sentence you shall do the contrary of this. For consider this. Pausanias, as he thought, interred these men in amicable ground and amongst their friends. But you, if you slay us, and of Plataeis make Thebais, what do you but leave your fathers and kindred, deprived of the honours they now have, in an hostile territory and amongst the very men that slew them? And moreover, put into servitude that soil whereon the Grecians were put into liberty? And make desolate the temples wherein they prayed when they prevailed against the Medes? And destroy the patrial sacrifices which were instituted by the builders and founders of the same?
These things are not for your glory, men of Lacedaemon, nor to violate the common institutions of Greece and wrong your progenitors, nor to destroy us that have done you service for the hatred of another when you have received no injury from us yourselves, but to spare our lives, to relent, to have a moderate compassion in contemplation not only of the greatness of the punishment but also of who we are that must suffer and of the uncertainty where calamity may light, and that undeservedly.
Which we, as becometh us and our need compelleth us to do, cry aloud unto the common gods of Greece to persuade you unto producing the oath sworn by your fathers to put you in mind; and also we become here sanctuary men at the sepulchres of your fathers, crying out upon the dead not to suffer themselves to be in the power of the Thebans nor to let their greatest friends be betrayed into the hands of their greatest enemies, remembering them of that day upon which, though we have done glorious acts in their company, yet we are in danger at this day of most miserable suffering.
But to make an end of speaking (which is as necessary so most bitter to men in our case because the hazard of our lives cometh so soon after), for a conclusion we say that it was not to the Thebans that we rendered our city (for we would rather have died of famine, the most base perdition of all other), but we came out on trust in you. And it is but justice that if we cannot persuade you, you should set us again in the estate we were in and let us undergo the danger at our own election.
Also we require you, men of Lacedaemon, not only not to deliver us Plataeans, who have been most zealous in the service of the Grecians especially being sanctuary men, out of your own hands and your own trust into the hands of our most mortal enemies the Thebans but also to be our saviours and not to destroy us utterly, you that set at liberty all other Grecians.
Thus spake the Plataeans. But the Thebans, fearing lest the Lacedaemonians might relent at their oration, stood forth and said that since the Plataeans had had the liberty of a longer speech (which they thought they should not) than for answer to the question was necessary, they also desired to speak, and being commanded to say on, spake to this effect:
"If these men had answered briefly to the question and not both turned against us with an accusation and also out of the purpose and wherein they were not charged made much apology and commendation of themselves in things unquestioned, we had never asked leave to speak. But as it is, we are to the one point to answer and to confute the other, that neither the fault of us nor their own reputation may do them good, but your sentence may be guided by hearing of the truth of both.
The quarrel between us and them arose at first from this, that when we had built Plataea last of all the cities of Boeotia, together with some other places which, having driven out the promiscuous nations, we had then in our dominion, they would not (as was ordained at first) allow us to be their leaders; but being the only men of all the Boeotians that transgressed the common ordinance of the country when they should have been compelled to their duty, they turned unto the Athenians and together with them did us many evils, for which they likewise suffered as many from us.
"But when the barbarian invaded Greece, then, say they, that they of all the Boeotians only also Medized not. And this is the thing wherein they both glory most themselves and most detract from us.
Now we confess they Medized not because also the Athenians did not. Nevertheless, when the Athenians afterwards invaded the rest of the Grecians, in the same kind then of all the Boeotians they only Atticized.
But take now into your consideration withal what form of government we were in both the one and the other when we did this. For then had we our city governed neither by an oligarchy with laws common to all nor by a democracy; but the state was managed by a few with authority absolute, than which there is nothing more contrary to laws and moderation nor more approaching unto tyranny.
And these few, hoping yet further, if the Medes prevailed, to increase their own power, kept the people under and furthered the coming in of the barbarian. And so did the whole city, but it was not then master of itself nor doth it deserve to be upbraided with what it did when they had no laws [but were at the will of others].
But when the Medes were gone and our city had laws, consider now, when the Athenians attempted to subdue all Greece and this territory of ours with the rest wherein through sedition they had gotten many places already, whether by giving them battle at Coroneia and defeating them, we delivered not Boeotia from servitude then, and do not also now with much zeal assist you in the asserting of the rest, and find not more horses and more provision of war than any of the confederates besides. And so much be spoken by way of apology to our Medizing.
"And we will endeavour to prove now that the Grecians have been rather wronged by you and that you are more worthy of all manner of punishment. You became, you say, confederates and denizens of Athens for to be righted against us.
Against us then only the Athenians should have come with you and not you with them have gone to the invasion of the rest, especially when if the Athenians would have led you whither you would not, you had the league of the Lacedaemonians made with you against the Medes, which you so often object, to have resorted unto, which was sufficient not only to have protected you from us but, which is the main matter, to have secured you to take what course you had pleased. But voluntarily and without constraint you rather chose to follow the Athenians.
And you say it had been a dishonest thing to have betrayed your benefactors. But it is more dishonest and more unjust by far to betray the Grecians universally, to whom you have sworn, than to betray the Athenians alone, especially when these go about to deliver Greece from subjection and the other to subdue it.
Besides, the requital you make the Athenians is not proportionable nor free from dishonesty. For you, as you say yourselves, brought in the Athenians to right you against injuries; and you co-operate with them in injuring others. And howsoever, it is not so dishonest to leave a benefit unrequited as to make such a requital, as though justly due cannot be justly done.
"But you have made it apparent that even then it was not for the Grecians' sake that you alone of all the Boeotians Medized not but because the Athenians did not;
yet now you that would do as the Athenians did, and contrary to what the Grecians did, claim favour of these for what you did for the others' sake. But there is no reason for that; but as you have chosen the Athenians, so let them help you in this trial.
And produce not the oath of the former league as if that should save you now. For you have relinquished it and, contrary to the same, have rather helped the Athenians to subdue the Aeginetae and others than hindered them from it. And this you not only did voluntarily and having laws the same you have now, and none forcing you to it as there did us, but also rejected our last invitation, a little before the shutting up of your city, to quietness and neutrality.
Who can therefore more deservedly be hated of the Grecians in general than you that pretend honesty to their ruin? And those acts wherein formerly, as you say, you have been beneficial to the Grecians, you have now made apparent to be none of yours and made true proof of what your own nature inclines you to.
For with Athenians you have walked in the way of injustice. And thus much we have laid open touching our involuntary Medizing and your voluntary Atticizing.
"And for this last injury you charge us with, namely, the unlawful invading of your city in time of peace and of your new-moon sacrifice, we do not think, no not in this action, that we have offended so much as you yourselves.
For though we had done unjustly if we had assaulted your city or wasted your territory as enemies of our own accord; yet when the prime men of your own city, both for wealth and nobility, willing to discharge you of foreign league and conform you to the common institutions of all Boeotia, did of their own accord call us in, wherein lieth the injury then? For they that lead transgress rather than they that follow.
But as we conceive, neither they nor we have transgressed at all. But being citizens as well as you and having more to hazard, they opened their own gates and took us into the city as friends not as enemies with intention to keep the ill-affected from being worse and to do right to the good, taking upon them to be moderators of your councils and not to deprive the city of your persons but to reduce you into one body with the rest of your kindred, and not to engage you in hostility with any but to settle you in peace with all.
"And for an argument that we did not this as enemies, we did harm to no man but proclaimed that if any man were willing to have the city governed after the common form of all Boeotia, he should come to us.
And you came willingly at first and were quiet. But afterwards, when you knew we were but few, though we might seem to have done somewhat more than was fit to do without the consent of your multitude, you did not by us as we did by you, first innovate nothing in fact and then with words persuade us to go forth again, but contrary to the composition assaulted us. And for those men you slew in the affray, we grieve not so much; for they suffered by a kind of law. But to kill those that held up their hands for mercy, whom taken alive you afterwards had promised to spare, was not this a horrible cruelty?
You committed in this business three crimes, one in the neck of another; first, the breach of the composition; then, the death that followed of our men; and thirdly, the falsifying of your promise to save them if we did no hurt to anything of yours in the fields. And yet you say that we are the transgressors and that you for your parts deserve not to undergo a judgment. But it is otherwise. And if these men judge aright, you shall be punished now for all your crimes at once.
We have herein, men of Lacedaemon, been thus large both for your sakes and ours: for yours, to let you see that if you condemn them, it will be no injustice; for ours, that the equity of our revenge may the better appear.
Be not moved with the recital of their virtues of old, if any they had, which, though they ought to help the wronged, should double the punishment of such as commit wickedness because their offence doth not become them. Nor let them fare ever the better for their lamentation or your compassion when they cry out upon your fathers' sepulchres and their own want of friends.
For we on the other side affirm that the youth of our city suffered harder measure from them; and their fathers, partly slain at Coroneia in bringing Boeotia to your confederation and partly alive and now old and deprived of their children, make far juster supplication to you for revenge. And pity belongeth to such as suffer undeservedly;
but, on the contrary, when men are worthily punished, as these are, it is to be rejoiced at. And for their present want of friends they may thank themselves. For of their own accord they rejected the better confederates.
And the law hath been broken by them, without precedent wrong from us, in that they condemned our men spitefully rather than judicially, in which point we shall now come short of requiting them; for they shall suffer legally and not, as they say they do, with hands upheld from battle but as men that have put themselves upon trial by consent.
Maintain therefore, ye Lacedaemonians, the law of the Grecians against these men that have transgressed it, and give unto us that have suffered contrary to the law the just recompense of our alacrity in your service. And let not the words of these give us a repulse from you; but set up an example to the Grecians by presenting [unto these men] a trial not of words but of facts, which, if they be good, a short narration of them will serve the turn; if ill, compt orations do but veil them.
But if such as have the authority, as you have now, would collect the matter to a head and, according as any man should make answer thereunto, so proceed to sentence, men would be less in the search of fair speeches wherewith to excuse the foulness of their actions.
Thus spake the Thebans. And the Lacedaemonian judges, conceiving their interrogatory to stand well, namely, whether they had received any benefit by them or not in this present war, for they had indeed intreated them both at other times, according to the ancient league of Pausanias after the Medan war, to stand neutral, and also a little before the siege the Plataeans had rejected their proposition of being common friends to both sides according to the same league, taking themselves, in respect of these their just offers, to be now discharged of the league and to have received evil at their hands, caused them one by one to be brought forth and, having asked them again the same question, whether they had any way benefited the Lacedaemonians and their confederates in this present war or not, as they answered not led them aside and slew them, not exempting any.
Of the Plataeans themselves they slew no less than two hundred; of the Athenians who were besieged with them, twenty-five.
The women they made slaves; and the Thebans assigned the city for a year, or thereabouts, for a habitation to such Megareans as in sedition had been driven from their own and to all those Plataeans which, living, were of the Theban faction. But afterwards, pulling it all down to the very foundation, they built a hospital in the place near the temple of Juno of two hundred foot diameter with chambers on every side in circle both above and below, using therein the roofs and doors of the Plataeans' buildings. And of the rest of the stuff that was in the city wall, as brass and iron, they made bedsteads and dedicated them to Juno, to whom also they built a stone chapel of a hundred foot over.