Plataea

The Athenians went beyond the boundaries the Corinthians had made for the Plataeans, fixing the Asopus river as the boundary for the Thebans in the direction of Plataea and Hysiae.

His son Eurymachus long afterwards was murdered by the Plataeans when, as general of four hundred Thebans, he seized the town of Plataea.

In the battle at Plataea, however, he made up for all the blame brought against him.

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.

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, seeing the mound rising, put together a wooden wall, and placed it on the wall of their city, where the mound was being made, and built bricks inside it, which they took from the neighbouring houses.

Now when the Lacedaemonian governor in the Acropolis heard the proclamation of the night, he at once sent to Plataea and Thespiae for help.

but Cleombrotus climbed the mountain by the road leading to Plataea.

And when he had passed this point and arrived at Plataea, he pretended that he was again going to Thespiae first, and sending thither he gave orders that a market should be made ready and that the embassies should await him there;

All this chicanery, and much besides, might have been instantly detected, and you might have been informed and spared the sacrifice of your interests, if you had not been cheated out of the truth by that story of Thespiae and Plataea and the imminent punishment of the Thebans.

He offered you a calculation that, thanks to his diplomacy, without leaving your homes, without any campaigning or worry, within two or three days you would hear the news of the beleaguerment of Thebes, independently of the rest of Boeotia, of the repopulation of Thespiae and Plataea, and of the recovery of Apollo’s treasure, not from the Phocians, but from the Thebans, who had planned the seizure of the temple.

For he had told you that Philip would fortify Thespiae and Plataea, would not destroy the Phocians, and would put a stop to the aggressions of the Thebans;

I urged that we should emulate the battle that we fought at Plataea, the struggles off the shores of Salamis, the battles of Marathon and Artemisium, and the generalship of Tolmides, who with a thousand picked men of the Athenians fearlessly marched straight through the Peloponnesus, the enemy’s country.

Or take Perdiccas, who was reigning in Macedonia at the time of the Persian invasion, and who destroyed the Persians on their retreat from Plataea, and made the defeat of the King irreparable.

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;

for what limit indeed can there be, if we are always sanctioning the destruction of existing cities, and demanding the restoration of those that are destroyed.

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.

I swear it by our forefathers who bore the brunt of warfare at Marathon, who stood in array of battle at Plataea, who fought in the sea-fights of Salamis and Artemisium, and by all the brave men who repose in our public sepulchres, buried there by a country that accounted them all to be alike worthy of the same honor —all, I say, Aeschines, not the successful and the victorious alone.

Thirdly, men of Athens—and when I have given just this one further instance, I will at once pass on to some topics that I have omitted—when we ambassadors returned from administering the oaths for the peace, at that time there were some who assured us that Thespiae and Plataea would be rebuilt, that Philip, if he gained the mastery, would protect the Phocians and break up Thebes into villages, and …

It would indeed have been fair, men of Athens, to call upon those who conveyed to you Philip’s promises, on the strength of which you were induced to conclude the Peace.

And they fought together with you and the others who were seeking to save the freedom of Greece in the final battle at Plataea against Mardonius, the King’s general, and deposited the liberty thus secured as a common prize for all the Greeks.

The Plataeans refused this offer and made answer that they would do nothing without the Athenians, whereupon the Lacedaemonians besieged them for two years, built a double wall about their city, and made repeated assaults of every conceivable sort.

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 instance, straightway about the Persian war, some say that the sea-fight at Salamis was later than the battle at Plataea, others that the last of the deeds was the one at Plataea;

Thus when peace was made among the Grecian states, the Thebans retained Plataea, observing that they neither owed their possession of it to violence, nor treachery, but to the free surrender of those, to whom it belonged.

and although it was only the other day that they razed both Thespiae and Plataea to the ground, yet now, after a lapse of four hundred years, they propose to settle their colonists in Messene acting in both cases contrary to the oaths and covenants.

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.

It was on the soil of Plataea that the Lacedaemonians had encamped with us and with the other allies, drawn up for battle against our enemies;

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.

For who does not know that the Thebans have portioned out our land for pasturage and have razed our city to the ground?

For these reasons we supplicate you one and all, Athenians, to restore to us our land and city, reminding the older men among you how piteous a thing it is that men of their age should be seen in misfortune and in lack of their daily bread;

and if we encounter those who fare well, our lot is even harder to bear, not because we envy them their prosperity, but because amid the blessings of our neighbors we see more clearly our own miseries—miseries so great that we spend no day without tears, but spend all our time mourning the loss of our fatherland and bewailing the change in our fortunes.