Boeotians

For those who are now called Boeotians, being driven out of Arne by the Thessalians in the sixtieth year after the taking of Troy, settled in what is now called Boeotia, but was before called the Cadmean country.

Having taken Chaeronea, [and reduced it to slavery,

And the exiles of the Boeotians were restored, and they and all the rest became independent again.

Within Byzantium was Clearchus the Lacedaemonian, its governor, and with him some Laconian Perioeci, a few emancipated Helots, a contingent of Megarians, under the command of Helixus the Megarian, and one of Boeotians, under the command of Coeratadas.

and the plea of these was that they did not think they would be true to their oaths if they took the field against the Athenians when the latter were doing nothing in violation of the treaty;

Those who were now drawn up against Agesilaus were the Boeotians, Athenians, Argives, Corinthians, Aenianians, Euboeans, and both the Locrian peoples;

The Thebans took the field on the strength of their alliance with that family but were soundly beaten by the Athenians.

When they met the Boeotians in battle, they won a great victory, slaying very many and taking seven hundred of them prisoner.

The Boeotians came to the Euripus to help the Chalcidians and as soon as the Athenians saw these allies, they resolved to attack the Boeotians before the Chalcidians.

They were valiant Teuthras, and Orestes the renowned charioteer, Trechos the Aetolian warrior, Oinomaos, Helenos the son of Oinops, and Oresbios of the gleaming belt, who was possessed of great wealth, and dwelt by the Cephisian lake with the other Boeotians who lived near him, owners of a fertile district [ dêmos].

The others, therefore, with their heavy armor bore the brunt of the fight with the Trojans and with Hektor, while the Locrians shot from behind, under their cover;

The Boeotians and the Ionians with their long tunics, the Locrians, the men of Phthia, and the famous force of the Epeans could hardly stay Hektor as he rushed on towards the ships, nor could they drive him from them, for he was as a wall of fire.

and when he had gained this point he betrayed all Boeotia to the Thebans by writing in the decree, If any city refuse to follow Thebes, the Athenians shall aid the Boeotians in Thebes, cheating with words and altering the facts, as he is wont to do;

Now when Demosthenes saw that such was the situation, suspecting that the Boeotarchs were about to conclude a separate peace and get gold from Philip without his being in it, and thinking that life was not worth living if he was to be left out of any act of bribery, he jumped up in the assembly, when no man was saying a word either in favour of making peace with Philip or against it;

But when the officials in Thebes would pay no attention to him, but even turned your soldiers back again when they had marched out, for they wished to give you an opportunity to deliberate concerning peace, then indeed he became frantic, and went forward to the platform and stigmatized the Boeotarchs as traitors to Hellas, and declared that he would move a decree—he, who never looked on the face of an enemy in arms!

To prove that I speak the truth, please call Mnason the Phocian and those who have come with him, and call the delegates chosen by the Boeotian exiles.

For if there were any truth in these assertions of yours, the Boeotian fugitives, for whose expulsion I was responsible, and the Phocian exiles, whose restoration I prevented, would be accusing me now.

Would it not, then, be monstrous treatment for me if I should be convicted when my accuser is Demosthenes, the paid servant of Thebes and the wickedest man in Hellas, while my advocates are Phocians and Boeotians?

We imagined, did we not, that once Boeotia joined forces with us we could face the whole world.

Now we were both suffering a wrong ourselves and also supporting the cause of the Boeotians who had been wronged.

today, after the loss of thousands of lives, after the devastation of a large part of her territory, after heavy public and private expenditure, which is now a dead loss, after four years of fighting, Boeotia is recognizing the independence of Orchomenus and making peace, thereby rendering her sufferings useless, as by acknowledging the independence of Orchomenus at the outset she need never have gone to war at all.

They ordered all the Peloponnesians with the exception of the Argives to send two-thirds of their armies from their several cities, and they sent word to all the rest of the Boeotians and the Locrians and Phocians and Malians and Oetaeans and Aenians to take the field with their entire forces.

And again, when Xerxes came against Greece and the Thebans went over to the side of the Medes, the Plataeans refused to withdraw from their alliance with us, but, unsupported by any others of the Boeotians, half of them arrayed themselves in Thermopylae against the advancing barbarian together with the Lacedaemonians and Leonidas, and perished with them;

Then they would have had to put up with the Boeotians and the dullness of the Thebans, and after that with the Athenians, treating you no longer as their children but as their slaves.

With him went the horse-driving Boeotians, breathing above their shields, and the Locrians who fight hand to hand, and the gallant Phocians eager for war and battle.

When the Boeotians hesitated upon some propositions made to them by Lysander, he asked them whether they intended that he should pass with erected or inclined spears, meaning by the expression in a hostile or a quiet manner.

After raising a mercenary force he took command of the citizen army and defeated the first opponents of Greek freedom, the Boeotians, Macedonians and Euboeans, together with their other allies, in battle in Boeotia.

For when the Lacedaemonians came and the democracy was shut up in the Piraeus, again he fled from there and resided among the Boeotians;

And you think that the affairs of the Thebans are in a bad way because they oppress their neighbors, but, although you yourselves are treating your allies no better than the Thebans treat the Boeotians, you believe that your own actions leave nothing to be desired.

and there we had won freedom, not only for the Hellenes who fought with us, but also for those who were compelled to be on the side of the Persians, and we accomplished this with the help of the Plataeans, who alone of the Boeotians fought with us in that war.

Now rouse your companions, Aeneas, first to shout the praises of Hera Parthenia, and then to know whether we have truly escaped the ancient reproach of men’s speech, “Boeotian pig.

and the prizes of the bronze shield in Argos and the works of art in Arcadia and Thebes are familiar with him, and the duly ordered contests of the Boeotians, and Pellana and Aegina, where he was six times victor.

And I imagine that when the Athenians and Spartans and Boeotians lost their men at Tanagra, and later at Coronea, among whom your own father perished, the difference that caused their deaths and fights was solely on a question of just and unjust, was it not?

In the following year he made another expedition against Thebes, and, after crossing the stockade and trenches at Scolus, laid waste the rest of Boeotia.

After this Sparta was attacked by all the Arcadians, Argives, Eleians and Boeotians, who had the support of the Phocians, both the Locrian peoples, the Thessalians, Aenianians, Acarnanians and Euboeans.

When he had passed through Macedonia and reached Thessaly, the people of Larisa, Crannon, Scotussa and Pharsalus, who were allies of the Boeotians, all the Thessalians, in fact, except those who happened to be in exile at the time, followed at his heels and kept molesting him.

Proxenus the Boeotian cherished from his earliest youth an eager desire to become a man capable of dealing with great affairs, and because of this desire he paid money to Gorgias of Leontini.

When they reached Tissaphernes’ doors, the generals were invited in—Proxenus the Boeotian, Menon the Thessalian, Agias the Arcadian, Clearchus the Laconian, and Socrates the Achaean—while the captains waited at the doors.

Which do you think are the more united?

Do you know then, that in point of numbers the Athenians are not inferior to the Boeotians?

The Athenians, I should say, for many of the Boeotians resent the selfish behaviour of the Thebans.