History of the Peloponnesian War

For it will be thought a horrible matter that Plataea should be destroyed by Lacedaemonians 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 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 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 Plataeans, who even beyond our strength have been zealous in the defence of the Grecians, are now abandoned and left unrelieved by them all.

"But 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 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.