The History of the Peloponnesian War, Volume I (33 page)

56.
“The Thebans have done us many other injuries; but this last, which is the cause of what we now suffer, you yourselves know what it was. For we avenged us but justly of those that in time of peace, and upon the day of our
novilunial
sacrifice, had surprised our city; and by the law of all nations it is lawful to repel an assailing enemy; and therefore there is no reason you should punish us now for them. For if you shall measure justice by your and their present benefit in the war
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, it will manifestly appear, that you are not judges of the truth, but respecters only of your profit. And yet if the Thebans seem profitable to you now, we and the rest of the Grecians were more
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profitable to you then, when you were in greater danger. For though the Thebans are now on your side, when you invade others; yet at that time when the barbarian came in to impose servitude on all, they were on his. It is but justice, that with our present offence (if we have committed any) you compare our forwardness then; which you will find both greater than our fault, and augmented also by the circumstance of such a season, when it was rare to find any Grecian that durst oppose his valour to Xerxes’ power; and when they were most commended, not that with safety helped to further his invasion
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, but that adventured to do what was most honest, though with danger. But we being of that number, and honoured for it amongst the first, are afraid lest the same shall be now a cause of our destruction; as having chosen rather to follow the Athenians justly, than you profitably. But you should ever have the same opinion in the same case; and think this only to be profitable, that doing what is useful for the present occasion, you reserve withal a constant acknowledgment of the virtue of your good confederates. 57. Consider also, that you are an example of honest dealing to the most of the Grecians. Now if you shall decree otherwise than is just, (for
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this judgment of yours is conspicuous, you that be praised, against us that be not blamed), take heed that they do not dislike that good men should undergo an unjust sentence, though at the hands of better men; or that the spoil of us that have done the Grecians service, should be dedicated in their temples. For it will be thought a horrible matter, that Platæa should be destroyed by Lacedæmonians; and that you, whereas your fathers in honour of our valour inscribed the name of our city on the tripod at Delphi, should now blot it out
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of all Greece, to gratify the Thebans. For we have proceeded to such a degree of calamity, that if the Medes had prevailed, we must have
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perished then; and now the Thebans have overcome us again in you, who were before our greatest friends; and have put us to two great hazards, one before, of famishing if we yielded not, and another now, of a capital sentence. And we Platæans, who even beyond our strength have been zealous in the defence of the Grecians, are now abandoned and left unrelieved by them all. 58. But
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we beseech you for those gods’ sakes, in whose names once we made mutual league, and for our valour’s sake shown in the behalf of the Grecians, to be moved towards us; and, if at the persuasion of the Thebans you have determined aught against us, to change your minds, and reciprocally to require at the hands of the Thebans this courtesy, that whom you ought to spare, they would be contented not to kill, and so receive an honest benefit in recompense of a wicked one; and not to bestow pleasure upon others, and receive wickedness
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upon yourselves in exchange. For though to take away our lives be a matter quickly done, yet to make the infamy of it cease will be work enough. For being none of your enemies, but well–willers, and such as have entered into the war upon constraint, you cannot put us to death with justice. Therefore if you will judge uncorruptly, you ought to secure our persons; and to remember that you received us by our own voluntary submission, and with hands upheld, (and it is the law among Grecians, not to put such to death), besides that we have from time to time
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been beneficial to you. For look upon the sepulchres of your fathers, whom, slain by the Medes and buried in this territory of ours, we have yearly honoured at the public charge both with vestments
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and other rites, and of such things as our land hath produced, we have offered unto them the first fruits of it all, as friends in an amicable land, and confederates, use to do to those that have formerly been their fellows in arms. But now by a wrong sentence, you shall do the contrary of this. For consider this. Pausanias, as he thought, interred these men in amicable ground, and amongst their friends. But you, if you slay us, and of Platæis make Thebais, what do you but leave your fathers and kindred, deprived of the honours they now have, in an hostile territory and amongst the very men that slew them? And moreover, put into servitude that soil whereon the Grecians were put into liberty? And make desolate the temples wherein they prayed when they prevailed against the Medes? And destroy the patrial sacrifices which were instituted by the builders and founders of the same?

59.
“These things are not for your glory, men of Lacedæmon; nor to violate the common institutions of Greece and wrong your progenitors, nor to destroy us that have done you service for the hatred of another, when you have received no injury from us yourselves: but to spare our lives, to relent, to have a moderate compassion, in contemplation not only of the greatness of the punishment, but also of who we are that must suffer, and of the uncertainty where calamity may light, and that undeservedly. Which we
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, as becometh us and our need compelleth us to do, cry aloud unto the common gods of Greece to persuade you unto; producing the oath sworn by your fathers, to put you in mind; and also we become here sanctuary men at the sepulchres of your fathers, crying out upon the dead, not to suffer themselves to be in the power of the Thebans, nor to let their greatest friends be betrayed into the hands of their greatest enemies; remembering them of that day, upon which though we have done glorious acts in their company, yet we are in danger at this day of most miserable suffering. But to make an end of speaking, (which is, as necessary, so most bitter to men in our case, because the hazard of our lives cometh so soon after), for a conclusion we say, that it was not to the Thebans that we rendered our city, (for we would rather have died of famine, the most base perdition of all other), but we came out on trust in you. And it is but justice, that if we cannot persuade you, you should set us again in the estate we were in, and let us undergo the danger at our own election. Also we require
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you, men of Lacedæmon, not only not to deliver us Platæans, who have been most zealous in the service of the Grecians, especially being sanctuary men, out of your own hands and your own trust into the hands of our most mortal enemies the Thebans, but also to be our saviours, and not to destroy us utterly, you that set at liberty all other Grecians.”

60.
Thus spake the Platæans. But the Thebans, fearing lest the Lacedæmonians might relent at their oration, stood forth and said, that since the Platæans had had the liberty of a longer speech, (which they thought they should not), than for answer to the question was necessary, they also desired to speak; and being commanded to say on, spake to this effect:

61.
“If these men had answered briefly to the question, and not both turned against us with an accusation, and also out of the purpose, and wherein they were not charged, made much apology and commendation of themselves in things unquestioned, we had never asked leave to speak. But as it is, we are to the one point to answer, and to confute the other, that neither the fault of us, nor their own reputation may do them good; but your sentence may be guided by hearing of the truth of both. The quarrel between us and them arose at first from this; that when we had built Platæa last
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of all the cities of Bœotia, together with some other places which, having driven out the promiscuous nations, we had then in our dominion, they would not (as was ordained at first) allow us to be their leaders, but being the only men of all the Bœotians that transgressed the common ordinance of the country
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, when they should have been compelled to their duty they turned unto the Athenians, and together with them did us many evils; for which they likewise suffered as many from us. 62. But when the barbarian invaded Greece, then, say they, that they of all the Bœotians only also medized not. And this is the thing wherein they both glory most themselves, and most detract from us. Now we confess they medized not; because also the Athenians did not. Nevertheless, when the Athenians afterwards invaded the rest of the Grecians, in the same kind then of all the Bœotians they only Atticized. But take now into your consideration withal, what form of government we were in both the one and the other, when we did this. For then had we our city governed, neither by an oligarchy with laws common to all, nor by a democracy; but the state was managed by a few with authority absolute, than which there is nothing more contrary to laws and moderation, nor more approaching unto tyranny. And these few, hoping yet further, if the Medes prevailed, to increase their own power, kept the people under and furthered the coming in of the barbarian. And so did the whole city, but it was not then master of itself; nor doth it deserve to be upbraided with what it did when they had no laws [but were at the will of others]. But when the Medes were gone and our city had laws
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, consider now, when the Athenians attempted to subdue all Greece, and this territory of ours with the rest, wherein through sedition they had gotten many places already, whether by giving them battle at Coroneia and defeating them, we delivered not Bœotia from servitude then, and do not also now with much zeal assist you in the asserting of the rest, and find not more horses and more provision of war than any of the confederates besides. And so much be spoken by way of apology to our medizing.

63.
“And we will endeavour to prove now, that the Grecians have been rather wronged by you, and that you are more worthy of all manner of punishment. You became, you say, confederates and denizens of Athens, for to be righted against us. Against
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us then only the Athenians should have come with you, and not you with them have gone to the invasion of the rest; especially when if the Athenians would have led you whither you would not, you had the league of the Lacedæmonians made with you against the Medes, which you so often object, to have resorted unto; which was sufficient not only to have protected you from us, but, which is the main matter, to have secured you to take what course you had pleased. But voluntarily, and without constraint, you rather chose to follow the Athenians. And you say, it had been a dishonest thing to have betrayed your benefactors. But it is more dishonest, and more unjust by far, to betray the Grecians universally, to
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whom you have sworn, than to betray the Athenians alone; especially when these go about to deliver Greece from subjection, and the other to subdue it. Besides, the requital you make the Athenians is not proportionable, nor free from dishonesty. For you, as you say yourselves, brought in the Athenians to right you against injuries; and you cooperate with them in injuring others. And howsoever, it is not so dishonest to leave a benefit unrequited, as to make such a requital, as though justly due cannot be justly done
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. 64. But you have made it apparent, that even then it was not for the Grecians’ sake that you alone of all the Bœotians medized not, but because the Athenians did not; yet now you that would do as the Athenians did, and contrary to what the Grecians did, claim favour of these, for what you did for the others’ sake
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. But there is no reason for that: but as you have chosen the Athenians, so let them help you in this trial. And produce not the oath
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of the former league, as if that should save you now. For you have relinquished it: and contrary to the same, have rather helped the Athenians to subdue the Æginetæ and others
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, than hindered them from it. And this you not only did voluntarily, and having laws the same you have now, and none forcing you to it, as there did us; but also rejected our last invitation, a little before the shutting up of your city, to quietness and neutrality. Who can therefore more deservedly be hated of the Grecians in general, than you, that pretend honesty
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to their ruin? And those acts wherein formerly, as you say, you have been beneficial to the Grecians, you have now made apparent to be none of yours, and made true proof of what your own nature inclines you to. For with Athenians you have walked in the way of injustice. And thus much we have laid open touching our involuntary medizing, and your voluntary atticizing.