History of the Peloponnesian War

Their present destitution, then, they have incurred by their own conduct; for they wilfully rejected the better alliance. Nor did they thus outrage all law in consequence of having first suffered at our hands, but from deciding under the influence of hatred, rather than of justice. And they have not now given us proportionate satisfaction for their crimes; for they will suffer by a legal sentence, and not while holding forth their hands after battle, as they say, but after surrendering to you on definite terms to take their trial.

Avenge therefore, Lacedaemonians, the law of the Greeks which has been violated by these men. And to us who have been treated in contempt of all law return a due gratitude for the zeal we have shown; and let us not lose our place in your favour through their words, but give the Greeks a proof that you will not institute contests of words, but of deeds; for which a short statement is sufficient when they are good; but when they are done amiss, harangues dressed out with imposing language serve as veils for them.

But if ruling states should, like you in the present instance, summarily pronounce their decisions on all offenders, men would be less disposed to seek for fine words as a screen for unjust actions.

To this effect then spoke the Thebans. The Lacedaemonian judges, thinking that the question,

Whether they had received any service from them during the war,

Whether they had done the Lacedaemonians and allies any service in the war,

Of the Plataeans themselves they slew not less than two hundred, and of the Athenians twenty-five, who were besieged with them;

the women they sold as slaves. As for the city, the Thebans gave it for about a year to some of the Megareans to inhabit, who had been banished by party influence, and to such of the Plataeans on their own side as still survived. Afterwards they razed the whole of it to the ground, from the very foundations, and built to the sacred precinct of Juno an inn two hundred feet square, with rooms all round, above and below, making use of the roofs and doors of the Plataeans; and with the rest of the furniture, in brass and iron, that was [*]( Or, as Bloomfield and Göller render it, whatever movable materials there were in the wall; referring to the metal cramps by which the copingstones were fastened. But though lead and iron are mentioned as having been used for that purpose, (see I. p. 93. 6,) they do not bring forward any instance of brass having been used with them; nor does it seem probable that such would be the case. I have therefore followed Poppo, Haack, and others, in supposing, that as the wood work in the new building was taker from the houses in the town, a similar use was made of the iron and bras, implements, which must also surely have been found there. At least it is very difficult to imagine, with Göller, that they had been all used up by the garrison during the siege. And instead of the opposition which he says is intended between the wood in the houses and the metal in the wall, the use of the ἄλλοις appears rather to imply that the rafters, doors, and metal implements were all taken from the same quarter.) within the wall, they made couches and dedicated them to Juno, building also in her honour a stone chapel of one hundred feet square. The land they confiscated, and let out for ten years, its occupiers being Thebans.

And nearly throughout the whole business it was on account of the Thebans that the Lacedaemonians were so averse to the Plataeans; for they considered them to be of service for the war which had then but recently broken out.

Such then was the end of Plataea, in the ninety-third year after they became allies of the Athenians.