History of the Peloponnesian War

When they had done, they sent a messenger to Athens and gave truce to the Thebans to fetch away the bodies of their dead, and ordered the city as was thought convenient for the present occasion.

The news of what was done coming straightway to Athens, they instantly laid hands on all the Boeotians then in Attica and sent an officer to Plataea to forbid their farther proceeding with their Theban prisoners till such time as they also should have advised of the matter; for they were not yet advertised of their putting to death.

For the first messenger was sent away when the Thebans first entered the town; and the second, when they were overcome and taken prisoners; but of what followed after they knew nothing. So that the Athenians, when they sent, knew not what was done; and the officer arriving found that the men were already slain.

After this, the Athenians sending an army to Plataea, victualled it and left a garrison in it, and took thence both the women and children and also such men as were unserviceable for the war.

This action falling out at Plataea and the peace now clearly dissolved, the Athenians prepared themselves for war; so also did the Lacedaemonians and their confederates, intending on either part to send ambassadors to the king and to other barbarians, wheresoever they had hope of succours, and contracting leagues with such cities as were not under their own command.

The Lacedaemonians besides those galleys which they had in Italy and Sicily, of the cities that took part with them there, were ordered to furnish, proportionably to the greatness of their several cities, so many more as the whole number might amount to five hundred sail and to provide a sum of money assessed, and in other things not to stir farther but to receive the Athenians coming but with one galley at once till such time as the same should be ready.

The Athenians, on the other side, surveyed their present confederates and sent ambassadors to those places that lay about Peloponnesus, as Corcyra, Cephalonia, Acarnania, and Zacynthus, knowing that as long as these were their friends, they might with the more security make war round about upon the coast of Peloponnesus.