Histories

He groaned aloud and said to those standing by him: “This land is not ours and we will not be able to subdue it. My tooth holds whatever share of it was mine.”

Hippias supposed that the dream had in this way come true. As the Athenians were marshalled in the precinct of Heracles, the Plataeans came to help them in full force. The Plataeans had put themselves under the protection of the Athenians,[*](In 519, according to Thucydides (Thuc. 3.68); Grote gives a later date.) and the Athenians had undergone many labors on their behalf. This is how they did it:

when the Plataeans were pressed by the Thebans, they first tried to put themselves under the protection of Cleomenes son of Anaxandrides and the Lacedaemonians, who happened to be there. But they did not accept them, saying, “We live too far away, and our help would be cold comfort to you. You could be enslaved many times over before any of us heard about it.