46
Taking the lesson to heart, and deeming their action unjust and ill advised, while the words of the Athenians were just and their recommendation was the wisest, they went to their support at Plataea. Most of the allies had deserted their posts at nightfall, owing to the multitude of the enemy; but the Lacedaemonians and Tegeates routed the barbarians, while the Athenians and Plataeans fought and vanquished all the Greeks who had despaired of freedom and submitted to slavery.
47
On that day they brought the ventures of the past to a most glorious consummation; for not only did they secure a permanence of freedom for Europe, but had given proof of their own valor in all those trials, whether alone or with others, in land-fights or in sea-fights, against the barbarians or against the Greeks; and thus they were judged worthy by all—by their comrades in peril no less than their foes in the field—to have the leadership of Greece.
48
In later times a Grecian war arose from envy of what had come to pass, and jealousy of what had been achieved: great was the conceit of all, and small the allegation that each found needful. The Athenians, in a sea-fight with the Aeginetans and their allies, took seventy of their warships.
