History of the Peloponnesian War

Maintain therefore, ye Lacedaemonians, the law of the Grecians against these men that have transgressed it, and give unto us that have suffered contrary to the law the just recompense of our alacrity in your service. And let not the words of these give us a repulse from you; but set up an example to the Grecians by presenting [unto these men] a trial not of words but of facts, which, if they be good, a short narration of them will serve the turn; if ill, compt orations do but veil them.

But if such as have the authority, as you have now, would collect the matter to a head and, according as any man should make answer thereunto, so proceed to sentence, men would be less in the search of fair speeches wherewith to excuse the foulness of their actions.

Thus spake the Thebans. And the Lacedaemonian judges, conceiving their interrogatory to stand well, namely, whether they had received any benefit by them or not in this present war, for they had indeed intreated them both at other times, according to the ancient league of Pausanias after the Medan war, to stand neutral, and also a little before the siege the Plataeans had rejected their proposition of being common friends to both sides according to the same league, taking themselves, in respect of these their just offers, to be now discharged of the league and to have received evil at their hands, caused them one by one to be brought forth and, having asked them again the same question, whether they had any way benefited the Lacedaemonians and their confederates in this present war or not, as they answered not led them aside and slew them, not exempting any.

Of the Plataeans themselves they slew no less than two hundred; of the Athenians who were besieged with them, twenty-five.

The women they made slaves; and the Thebans assigned the city for a year, or thereabouts, for a habitation to such Megareans as in sedition had been driven from their own and to all those Plataeans which, living, were of the Theban faction. But afterwards, pulling it all down to the very foundation, they built a hospital in the place near the temple of Juno of two hundred foot diameter with chambers on every side in circle both above and below, using therein the roofs and doors of the Plataeans' buildings. And of the rest of the stuff that was in the city wall, as brass and iron, they made bedsteads and dedicated them to Juno, to whom also they built a stone chapel of a hundred foot over.