Orchomenus

Then the people of Orchomenus were in exceeding fear, and had begged for peace, on condition that their lives should be spared and they be allowed to go forth from Boeotia;

If, then, Sparta guarantees that our wrongs shall cease, and if the Boeotians have decided to allow Orchomenus its independence and make peace, why are we to continue fighting?

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.

If a prayer may be allowed, may they never cease to withhold honor and admiration from those who do them service, or to deal with kindred states in the same way (For you remember how they treated Orchomenus.

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.

In order, then, that this unwillingness may not stand in the way of the weakening of Thebes, let us admit that Thespiae, Orchomenus and Plataea ought to be restored, and let us co-operate with their inhabitants and appeal to the other states, for it is a just and honorable policy not to allow ancient cities to be uprooted;

They held Orchomenus, and Coronea, and Tilphosaeum;

they have also gained Orchomenus, Coronea, Corsia, Tilphosaeum, and as much of the Phocian territory as they want.

but Philip has made the Thebans dangerously strong, he has exterminated the Phocians, and, instead of fortifying Thespiae and Plataea, he has enslaved Orchomenus and Coronea as well.

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

Now some people actually go so far as to say that Philip was compelled, against his real wishes, to hand over Orchomenus and Coronea to the Thebans.

The man who orders the Lacedaemonians to give up their claims to Messene, how could he pretend that he handed over Orchomenus and Coronea to Thebes because he thought it an act of justice?

but now, since wealth has forsaken Orchomenus and Delphi, they can surpass you in pity, but not one in envy.

But I, arraying with song Poseidon and the sacred Isthmus and the shores of Onchestus, shall tell, along with the honors of this man, the very famous fortune of his father Asopodorus and of his ancestral land of Orchomenus, which received him from the boundless sea when he was hard-pressed by shipwreck, in chilly misfortune.

songful queens, Graces of splendid Orchomenus, guardians of the ancient race of Minyans, hear me;

Thus they all sat down before Orchomenus, and besieged it, and made assaults upon it;

But when tidings also came of the capture of Orchomenus, they were far more enraged, and under the influence of anger resolved immediately (contrary to their general habit) that they ought to demolish his house, and fine him ten thousand drachmas.

The Orchomenians, alarmed at the weakness of their wall and the number of the hostile forces, and fearing, since no succours had arrived, that they might perish before they did, surrendered on condition of joining the confederacy, giving hostages of their own to the Mantineans, and delivering up those whom the Lacedaemonians had deposited with them.

On the other hand the Lacedaemonians, what with maintaining a garrison of one regiment at Lechaeum and another at Orchomenus, keeping watch upon their allied states — those which they trusted, to prevent their being destroyed, and those which they distrusted, to prevent their revolting — and suffering and causing trouble around Corinth, were out of patience with the war.