Plataeans

After this the Athenians marched to Plataea, and brought in provisions, and left a garrison in it, and took out the least efficient of the men with the women and children.

but the Plataeans, after getting in as quickly as possible whatever they had in the country, immediately put the men to death.

for it was not the wish of the great body of the Plataeans to revolt from the Athenians.

Ever since that battle, when the Athenians are conducting sacrifices at the festivals every fourth year, the Athenian herald prays for good things for the Athenians and Plataeans together.

As the Athenians were marshalled in the precinct of Heracles, the Plataeans came to help them in full force.

When the Thebans heard this, they marched against the Plataeans, but the Athenians came to their aid.

And the Theban horsemen, upon perceiving that the Plataeans were approaching, went out to meet them and killed more than twenty of them;

Meanwhile the Athenians, seeing that the Plataeans, who were their friends, had been expelled from Boeotia and had fled to them for refuge, and that the Thespians were beseeching them not to allow them to be left without a city, no longer commended the Thebans, but, on the contrary, while they were partly ashamed to make war upon them and partly reckoned it to be inexpedient, they nevertheless ref …

For I see that you do not think one way and we another, but that you as well as we are distressed over the destruction of Plataea and Thespiae.

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;

You see, men of Athens, how well and how justly the orator framed the decree in the interest of the people of Athens by requiring that the Plataeans, after receiving the gift, should first undergo the scrutiny in the court, man by man, in order to show whether each man was a Plataean and one of the friends of the city, so as to avoid the danger that many might use this pretext to acquire Athenian citizenship;

The Plataeans, discovering that the Thebans had got within the gates in the night and that their city had been suddenly seized in time of peace, ran to bear aid and arrayed themselves for battle.

for, while the Lacedaemonians did not scruple to commit such wrongs both against the benefactors of Hellas and against their own kinsmen, our ancestors, on the other hand, gave the surviving Messenians a home in Naupactus and adopted the Plataeans who had escaped with their lives as Athenian citizens and shared with them all the privileges which they themselves enjoyed.

And yet, after no great interval of time, the Lacedaemonians, to gratify Thebes, reduced the Plataeans by siege and put them all to the sword with the exception of those who had been able to escape through their lines.

Furthermore, it would be strange if, having spoken of these wrongs, I failed to mention their treatment of the Plataeans.

It is a just request, for our ancestors, we are told, when in the Persian War your fathers had abandoned this land, alone of those who lived outside of the Peloponnesus shared in their perils and thus helped them to save their city.

For who could be found to be more unhappy than we are who, in one day deprived of our city, our lands, and our possessions, and being destitute of all necessities alike, have become wanderers and beggars, not knowing whither to turn and, whatever our habitation, finding no happiness there?

Since we Plataeans know, Athenians, that it is your custom not only zealously to come to the rescue of victims of injustice, but also to requite your benefactors with the utmost gratitude, we have come as suppliants to beg you not to remain indifferent to our having been driven from our homes in time of peace by the Thebans.