Thebans

When they arrived, the ephors called an assembly, at which the Corinthians and Thebans in particular, though many other Greeks agreed with them, opposed making a treaty with the Athenians and favoured destroying their city.

And, furthermore, they likewise came upon some of the Thebans returning from the pursuit, and killed a large number of them.

but the Thebans on their side, when they saw that their allies had taken refuge at Mount Helicon, wishing to break through to join their own friends, massed themselves together and came on stoutly.

in the sixth month after the battle at Potidaea, and in the beginning of spring, rather more than three hundred men of the Thebans, (led by Pythangelus, son of Phylidas, and Diemporus, son of Onetorides, Boeotarchs,) about the first watch entered with their arms into Plataea, a town of Boeotia, which was in alliance with the Athenians.

The rest of the Thebans, who were to have joined them with all their forces while it was still night, in case those who had entered should be at all unsuccessful, on receiving on their march the tidings of what had happened, advanced to their succour.

The Plataeans, on finding that the Thebans were within their walls, and that their city was unexpectedly taken, being very much alarmed, and thinking that far more had entered than really had, (for they did not see them in the night,) came to an agreement, and having accepted the terms, remained quiet;

And the same thing, I think, the Thebans too would suffer, if anyone should declare their misfortunes false—that the father Oedipus neither killed his father nor lay with his mother nor blinded himself, nor that his sons died before the wall by one another's hands, nor that the Sphinx, coming, devoured their children;

And these things they endure to hear, with flutes and singing, in their theater, and set up prizes for them—whoever shall speak or play most pitifully about them;

and this victory they loved so exceedingly that, though their city was overthrown for them and even now well-nigh is so save for a small part, the Cadmea being inhabited, of all the rest that had been destroyed — of many shrines, of many monuments and inscriptions — they took no thought, but having sought out the Hermes they again set it upright, on which was the epigram about the flute-playing:

This, then, is the course of action which the Athenians took, and the Thebans, desiring vengeance on Athens, afterwards appealed to Delphi for advice.

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

When the Thebans heard that they must entreat their “nearest,” they said, “If this is so, our nearest neighbors are the men of Tanagra and Coronea and Thespiae.

” In the same manner, when the Thebans had offered the most equitable terms to the Lacedaemonians, who still rose higher in their demands, Aristides says, that the justice of the cause changed sides and passed from the Lacedaemonians to the Thebans.

the Olynthians by Philip, the Thebans by Alexander, and the Brutians, made public slaves by the Romans:

Having explained in the preceding part the nature and rights of property, it remains for us to consider the obligation which we incur from thence.

when the Theban ambassadors were standing by, and when it was plain that Philip was threatened with the hostility of the Thebans and Thessalians:

But if you take the field and with your forces confirm the wrongdoing of the Thebans, you will receive no gratitude from those whom you help, for you could not possibly do them so great a service as the Athenians once did, and they have no memory for that;

And did not the Lacedaemonians take part with us in the negotiations against the Thebans, and did they not finally come into open collision with them in Macedonia and threaten them?

While you who are here and all other Athenians regarded the treatment of the Phocians as scandalous and outrageous, insomuch that you would not send any member of council or any judge to represent you at the Pythian games, but relinquished that time-honored delegation, Aeschines attended the service of thanksgiving which the Thebans and Philip held to celebrate their victory and their political su …

Philip was resolved from the first to do for the Thebans all that he has done, but Aeschines by the perversions of his report revealed your repugnance, and so intensified both your hostility and Philip’s friendliness towards the Thebans.

Nay more, the commonalty of the Phocians are in such an evil and pitiable plight that there is no question with them of prosecuting at an Athenian scrutiny—only of living like slaves in mortal terror of Thebans and of Philip’s mercenaries, who are billeted on them after they have been disarmed and distributed among villages.

but you were willing to overlook these wrongs, and when the Thebans had crossed over into Euboea in an attempt to enslave its cities, in five days you went to their rescue with fleet and troops, and before thirty days had passed you brought the Thebans to terms and sent them home;

Now it was reported to us by one and another who wished to show friendship to our city, that the Amphissians, who were at that time dominated by the Thebans and were their abject servants, were in the act of bringing in a resolution against our city, to the effect that the people of Athens be fined fifty talents, because we had affixed gilded shields to the new temple and dedicated them before the …

For as soon as Philip had come this side Thermopylae, and contrary to all expectation had destroyed the cities of Phocis, and strengthened the Thebans beyond what was seasonable and advantageous for you, as you then thought, and when you in alarm had brought in your movable property from the country districts, and the ambassadors who had negotiated the peace were under the gravest accusation—Philo …

You are aware that it is for the advantage of Athens that neither the Thebans nor the Lacedaemonians should be powerful;

At the time when he had imprisoned Pelopidas, and was holding him captive, when he was the most bitter enemy of the Thebans, when his feelings towards you were so fraternal that he applied to you for a commander, when you gave aid to his arms, when it was Alexander here and Alexander there,—why, gracious heavens!

When we were rescuing the Lacedaemonians, we dismissed from our minds the injuries they had done to us as enemies;

When it was evident that the Thebans, now fallen from arrogance to disaster, and much distressed by the prolongation of the war, would be compelled to seek the protection of Athens, Philip, to forestall such an appeal and coalition, offered peace to you and succor to them.

And the man who was hand-in-glove with Philip, and helped him to win that blind confidence, who brought lying reports to Athens and deluded his fellow-citizens, was this same Aeschines who to day bewails the sorrows of the Thebans and recites their pitiful story, being himself guilty of those sorrows, guilty of the distresses of the Phocians, guilty of all the sufferings of every nation in Greece.

A further result was that Athens got all the ill will of the Thebans and Thessalians, and Philip all their gratitude for these transactions.

and if the Thebans are, as people admit, hostile and likely to be even more so, because we offer an asylum to their exiles and make no disguise of our hostility to them in every way;

If we went to war again with the Thebans about Oropus or for some other private reason, I do not think we should suffer, for both their allies and ours would, of course, offer support, if their own territory were invaded, but would not join either side in aggression.

Hence today the Thebans have been partially successful in recovering territory, but have failed lamentably to win honor and glory;

— so, when peace was made in the archonship of Phrasicleides, and the battle was fought at Leuctra between the Thebans and the Lacedaemonians, this man Stephanus, having at the time come to Megara and having put up at Neaera’s house, as at the house of a courtesan, and having had intercourse with her, she told him all that had taken place and her brutal treatment by Phrynion.

— so, when the Plataeans saw the Thebans in the city and learned that their whole body was not there, they made an attack, overwhelmed them in battle, and destroyed them before the rest arrived to bear them further aid;

So, when the Thebans had failed in their attempt and the Plataeans had put to death those of their number whom they had taken alive in the battle, the Lacedaemonians, without waiting now for any pretext, marched against Plataea.

But if I leave off speaking at this point, I know that I shall appear to put Athens at a disadvantage, if, that is to say, the Thebans are to retain possession of Thespiae and Plataea and the other cities which they have seized contrary to their oaths, while we are to retire, under no compulsion to do so, from the territory which we now hold.

But now matters have taken such a turn that the Thebans are saving us and we them, and they are procuring allies for us and we for them.

For example, if the Thebans, after the battle which they won over the Lacedaemonians, had contented themselves with liberating the Peloponnesus and making the other Hellenes independent and had thenceforth pursued peace, while we continued to make such blunders, then neither could this man have asked such a question nor could we ourselves have failed to realize how much better moderation is than meddlesomeness.

first he settled a place near the Thermaic Gulf called Rhaecelus, and from there he passed to the region around Pangaeus, whence, having gathered money and hired soldiers, he came to Eretria, and in the eleventh year then for the first time attempted to recover his power by force, with many others helping him eagerly, especially the Thebans and Lygdamis of Naxos, and besides these the knights who …

Some of you Thessalians have honoured the storks because of custom, and the Thebans the weasels because of the birth of Heracles.

You know that lately you sent help to the Euboeans within three days and got rid of the Thebans by an armistice.

The Thebans suspect him, because he keeps a garrison at Nicaea and has stolen into the Amphictyonic Council, and because he attracts to his court the embassies of the Peloponnesian powers and secures their allies for himself.

I do not think you are naturally inferior to the Thebans—I should be mad to say that—only less well prepared.

It may be an unduly harsh thing to say, but they will join heartily in the invasion.

The Thebans?

Our duty, then, is to take care lest the Lacedaemonians grow strong and formidable before the Thebans are weaker, and lest their increase of power should, unperceived by us, out-balance the diminution of the power of Thebes, which our interests demand.

The position of affairs, then, if one may judge from statements repeatedly made in your Assembly, is such that the Thebans will be weakened by the refounding of Orchomenus, Thespiae and Plataea, but the Lacedaemonians will regain their power, if they get Arcadia into their hands and destroy Megalopolis.

Surely it is more honorable and satisfactory that we should win the alliance of the Thebans on our own account and resist Spartan ambition, than that we should shrink from rescuing the allies of Thebes and abandon them now, only to rescue the Thebans in the end, and to be kept moreover in perpetual alarm for ourselves.

the Thebans he is now misleading, having handed over Boeotia to them and relieved them of a long and trying war.

for there is a prize, honorable, great, and glorious, a prize for which the greatest of our states once spent all their time in contending, but since misfortune has dogged the Lacedaemonians, and the Phocian War has left the Thebans no leisure, and we are heedless, he has grasped it without a struggle.

In the second place, many so-called protectors are springing up everywhere, and all states are rivals for the leadership, but unfortunately some hold aloof, in mutual jealousy and distrust, and so each state has isolated itself—Argives, Thebans, Lacedaemonians, Corinthians, Arcadians, ourselves.

For you know, of course, that the famous Timotheus once harangued you to the effect that you ought to send an expedition to save the Euboeans, when the Thebans were trying to enslave them, and his words ran something like this:

the Thebans he is now misleading, having handed over Boeotia to them and relieved them of a long and trying war.

It would not have been safe at Thebes, until he gave them back Boeotia and wiped out the Phocians.

For my part, I believe that the Thebans are so little likely to join the King in an attack on Greece that they would pay a large sum, if they had it, to get a chance of expiating their former sins against the Greeks.

On the other hand, he learns that the ancestors of these Thebans and Argives either fought for the barbarians or did not fight against them.

That is why he is wide awake and ready to strike, and why he is courting certain people to the detriment of our city—Thebans, I mean, and those Peloponnesians who share their views.

But as to the Thebans, he believed—and the event justified him—that in return for benefits received they would give him a free hand for the future and, so far from opposing or thwarting him, would even join forces with him, if he so ordered.