interfered, and, by the consent of both parties, acted as arbitrators between them. In this capacity they traced a boundary between the conflicting states, and decreed that the Thebans were not to interfere with any people situated in Bœotia who did not choose to be members of the Bœotian confederacy. After delivering this just judgment the Corinthians went away, and the Athenians, whose work seemed to be done, marched homewards. On their march, however, the Bœotians set upon them, and were very rightly served in being defeated in the battle which ensued. The Athenians considered themselves entitled to profit by their victory, and established a boundary–line more favourable to Platæa than that decreed by the Corinthians. These transactions happened in the year 519 B.C., twenty–nine years before the period of which we are treating. The connexion which had thus begun by an important service rendered by Athens to Platæa, appears to have been strengthened by other acts of assistance; for Herodotus tells us that the Athenians had already undergone repeated toils for them. Whatever these had been, the Platæans nobly performed their part of the obligation. On the present occasion they marched to the aid of Athens with their whole force; we shall find them, in the next great war with Persia, serving, though an inland people, with their whole force on board the Athenian navy: and in all the contests which continually ravaged Greece, Platæa, as long as it continued a state, faithfully adhered to its ancient protector. At the commencement of the Peloponnesian war, the Athenians, unable effectually to protect so insulated a dependency, removed all its inhabitants, excepting a sufficient garrison, to Athens. The loyalty of the Platæans to their allegiance was their destruction. In the third year of the war the town was taken by the Lacedæmonians, those who remained in it put to death, the buildings, all except the temples, levelled with the ground, and its lands confiscated by the Theban state.