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.

Finally, some of the Thebans broke through and reached Mount Helicon, but many were killed while making their way thither.

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

The Thebans give this account of the matter, and say that they swore to it.

So by marching through the rain, and having passed the river with difficulty, they arrived too late;

The Thebans, on finding themselves outwitted, proceeded to close their ranks, and repel their attacks, wherever they might fall upon them.

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 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 it is likely that the Thebans too will be indignant, as though their victory were outraged, which they were preferred by Greece to win in flute-playing;

“I think that I perceive what the oracle is trying to tell us.

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

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

” 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.

Had not the Thebans already, suspicious of the situation, called out all their reserves and taken the field?

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

As I was in the midst of these words, Demosthenes protested with a loud voice, as all our colleagues know, for on top of all his other crimes he is for the Boeotians.

Or by the Thebans?

and so have all your hopes respecting the Thebans.

Such is the outcome of the peace for the Theban people;

But having wronged Philip and run away from thence, he made haste to throw himself at the feet of the Thebans.

Archedemus of Pelekes, a powerful speaker, and one who had met many political dangers for the sake of the Thebans;

Yes, but with walls of brass and steel, as he himself says, he fortified our land, by the alliance with Euboea and Thebes.

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;

Therefore, if you Thebans and Thessalians are wise, you will treat them as your enemies, and put your confidence in me.

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 it was an interest common to Philip, to the Phocians, and to all of you alike, to be quit of the unfeeling and offensive behavior of the Thebans.

We are allowing the Thebans to keep Oropus;

So you will find that each of these powers was induced for private reasons to do much that it did not wish.

No individual ally is so fond either of us or of the Thebans as to regard our security and our supremacy in the same light.

— 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 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.

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.

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.

The Thebans?

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

To save the victims of injustice.

and if they take Messene also, I say that we shall find ourselves in alliance with Thebes.

Now those who seem to argue most fairly demand of the Megalopolitans that they shall destroy the pillars that record their treaty with the Thebans, if they are to be our trusted allies.

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 in Thessaly to plead Philip’s cause, if the commoners of Thessaly had not shared in the advantages that Philip conferred, when he expelled their tyrants and restored to them their Amphictyonic privileges.

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.

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

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

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:

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.

And it was natural that he should form this opinion of you and the contrary opinion of the Argives and Thebans, because he not merely looks to the present, but also draws a lesson from the past.