History of the Peloponnesian War

"When we surrendered our city, Lacedaemonians, trusting in your good faith, we had no thought that we should have to undergo a trial like this, but supposed it would be a more regular procedure; and when we consented to be on trial before you and you alone as judges, as we now are, we believed that we should be most likely to obtain fair treatment.

But now we fear that we have been disappointed in both expectations; for we have good reason to suspect, not only that the issues involved in the trial are of the gravest nature[*](ie. that their very lives were at stake, whereas they had expected, after capitulation, that in the formal trial there could be no question of capital punishment.) but also that you will not prove to be impartial judges. These inferences we draw from the fact that no accusation was first brought against us requiring a plea in defence, but we have had to ask leave to speak, and that the question which is put to us is so curt that a truthful answer to it is against our interests, while a false one can be exposed at once.

But beset as we are with perplexities on every hand, we are forced, as indeed seems to be the safer course, to say something and take the risk; for to men in our condition not to have spoken would cause us afterwards to reproach ourselves with the thought that, had the word been spoken, it would have saved us.

A further difficulty in our position is the task of convincing you. For if we were strangers to each other, we might find it to our advantage to introduce evidence on matters with which you were unacquainted; but as it is, anything that we shall say is already known to you, and what we fear is, not that you have already judged our virtues[*](Referring to the achievement of the Plataeans in the Persian wars.) to be inferior to your own and now make that a charge against us, but that in order to gratify others[*](ie. the Thebans. With bitter irony the Plataeans ascribe to themselves the evident purpose of the Lacedaemonians—by standing trial before a prejudiced court they will “do a favour to the Thebans.”) we are to appear before a court that has already decided against us.