They accuse the Lacedaemonians because they occupied the Cadmea and established garrisons in their cities, yet they themselves, not sending garrisons, but razing the walls of some and entirely destroying others, think they have committed no atrocity; nay, they have come to such a pitch of shamelessness that while they demand that all their allies should be guardians of the safety of Thebes, yet they arrogate to themselves the right to impose slavery upon everybody else.

And yet what man would not detest the greedy spirit of these Thebans, who seek to rule the weaker, but think they must be on terms of equality with the stronger and who begrudge your city the territory ceded by the Oropians,Oropus, a town on the frontier between Attica and Boeotia, was long a bone of contention. In 412 B.C. it was treacherously taken by Thebes (Thucydides viii. 60); at some time after 402 B.C. it was under Athenian protection; in 366 B.C. Oropus was again seized by Thebes, but in 338 B.C. Philip gave the town to Athens. yet themselves forcibly seize and portion out territory not their own?

And not content with their other base misrepresentations, they now say that they pursued this course for the common good of the allies. And yet what they ought to have done, inasmuch as there is an Hellenic CouncilAthens' Second Confederacy, organized in 377 B.C. For this Council cf. § 18 above. here and your city is more competent than Thebes to advise prudent measures, is, not to be here now to defend the acts they have already committed, but to have come to you for consultation before they took any such action.