History of the Peloponnesian War

The number of the Plataeans that perished was not less than two hundred, and of the Athenians who had taken part in the siege twenty-five;

and the women were sold as slaves. As for the city itself, they gave occupation of it for about a year to some men of Megara who had been driven out in consequence of a sedition, and also to such of the surviving Plataeans as favoured the Lacedaemonian cause. Afterwards, however, they razed it entirely[*](Or, taking ἐκ τῶν θεμελίων with ψ)|κοδόμησαν, as Steup and others do, “they built on the old foundations.”) to the ground, and built, in the neighbourhood of the sanctuary of Hera, an inn two hundred feet square, with rooms all around, above and below, using for this purpose the roofs and doors of the Plataeans; and with the rest of the material inside the walls, articles of copper and iron, they fashioned couches, which they dedicated to Hera; and they also built for her a stone temple one hundred feet long.

But the land they confiscated and leased for ten years, and the Thebans occupied it. Indeed it was almost wholly for the sake of the Thebans that the Lacedaemonians in all their dealings with the Plataeans showed themselves so thoroughly hostile to them, thinking that the Thebans would be serviceable in the war then just beginning.

Such was the fate of Plataea, in the ninety-third year after they became allies of Athens.[*](519 B.C.)

Meanwhile[*](Resuning the narrative interrupted at 3.33.1.) the forty Peloponnesian ships, which had gone to the relief of the Lesbians and were at that time traversing the open sea in flight, after they had first been pursued by the Athenians and had been caught in a storm off Crete, had come straggling back to the Peloponnesus, where they found, at Cyllene, thirteen Leucadian and Ambraciot triremes and Brasidas son of Tellis, who had come as adviser to Alcidas.

For after they had failed to capture Lesbos the Lacedaemonians wished to strengthen their fleet and to sail to Corcyra, which was in the throes of a revolution. The Athenians had a fleet of only twelve ships at Naupactus, and the Lacedaemonians desired to reach Corcyra before a larger fleet could come from Athens to re-enforce them. It was with this end in view that Brasidas and Alcidas set about making their preparations.