History of the Peloponnesian War

The following summer the Peloponnesians and their allies did not make an incursion into Attica, but marched against Plataea, being led by Archidamus, the son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians. Having encamped his army, he was going to ravage the land; but the Plataeans immediately sent ambassadors to him, and spoke as follows:

Archidamus and Lacedaemonians, you are not doing what is right, or worthy either of yourselves or of the fathers from whom you are sprung, in marching against the territory of the Plataeans. For Pausanias son of Cleombrotus, the Lacedaemonian, when he had liberated Greece from the Medes, in conjunction with those Greeks who had been willing to incur with him the peril of the battle that was fought near our city, after sacrificing in the market-place of Plataea to Jupiter the Deliverer, and assembling all the allies, proceeded to grant to the Plataeans to live in independent possession of their land and city, and that no one should ever make war upon them unjustly, or to enslave them else that the allies then present should assist them to their utmost.

These rewards your fathers gave us for our valour and zeal, shown in those scenes of danger; but you are doing the very contrary; for in conjunction with the Thebans, our bitterest enemies, you are come to enslave us.

Calling the gods then to witness, both those who at that time received the oaths, and those of your own fathers, and those of our country, we charge you not to injure the Plataean territory, nor break the oaths, but to let us live independent, as Pausanias thought right to grant us.