History of the Peloponnesian War

And now, after having perpetrated in a short time these three crimes—the breach of your agreement, the subsequent murder of the men, and the falsification of your promise not to kill them, in case we did no injury to your property in the country—you still assert that it is we who are the transgressors; and yourselves claim to escape paying the penalty for your crimes. No, not if these your judges come to a right decision; but for all of them shall you be punished.

And now, Lacedaemonians, it is with this view that we have gone so far into these subjects—both with reference to you and to ourselves—that you may know that you will justly pass sentence on them, and we, that we have still more righteously been avenged on them;

and that you may not relent on hearing of their virtues in times long gone by (if, indeed, they ever had any); for though these ought to be of service to the injured, to such as are doing any thing base they should be a reason for double punishment, because they do amiss in opposition to their proper character. Nor let them derive benefit from their lamentations and pitiful wailing, while they appeal to the tombs of your fathers and their own destitution.

For we show you, on the other hand, that our youth who were butchered by them received far more dreadful treatment; some of whose fathers fell at Coronea, in bringing Boeotia into connexion with you; while others, left lonely in their old age, and their houses desolate, prefer to you a far more just request for vengeance on these men.

And with regard to pity, it is those men who suffer undeservedly that better deserve to receive it; but those who suffer justly, as these do, deserve, on the contrary, to be rejoiced over.