The passage in this oration against Neæra is also curious, both as it agrees with Thucydidês on many points, and as it differs from him on several others: in some sentences, even the words agree with Thucydidês (ὁ γὰρ Ἀσωπὸς ποταμὸς μέγας ἐῤῥύη, καὶ διαβῆναι οὐ ῥᾴδιον ἦν, etc.: compare Thucyd. ii, 2); while on other points there is discrepancy. Demosthenês—or the Pseudo-Demosthenês—states that Archidamus, king of Sparta, planned the surprise of Platæa,—that the Platæans only discovered, when morning dawned, the small real number of the Thebans in the town,—that the larger body of Thebans, when they at last did arrive near Platæa after the great delay in their march, were forced to retire by the numerous force arriving from Athens, and that the Platæans then destroyed their prisoners in the town. Demosthenês mentions nothing about any convention between the Platæans and the Thebans without the town, respecting the Theban prisoners within. On every point on which the narrative of Thucydidês differs from that of Demosthenês, that of the former stands out as the most coherent and credible. On the first entrance of the Theban assailants at night, a messenger had started from Platæa to carry the news to Athens: a second messenger followed him to report the victory and capture of the prisoners, as soon as it had been achieved. The Athenians sent back a herald without delay, enjoining the Platæans to take no step respecting the prisoners until consultation should be had with Athens. Periklês doubtless feared what turned out to be the fact: for the prisoners had been slain before his messenger could arrive. Apart from the terms of the convention, and looking only to the received practice of ancient warfare, their destruction could not be denounced as unusually cruel, though the Thebans, when fortune was in their favor, chose to designate it as such,[207]—but impartial contemporaries would notice, and the Athenians in particular would deeply lament, the glaring impolicy of the act. For Thebes, the best thing of all would of course be to get back her captured citizens forthwith: but next to that, the least evil would be to hear that they had been put to death. In the hands of the Athenians and Platæans, they would have been the means of obtaining from her much more valuable sacrifices than their lives, considered as a portion of Theban power, were worth: so strong was the feeling of sympathy for imprisoned citizens, several of them men of rank and importance,—as may be seen by the past conduct of Athens after the battle of Korôneia, and by that of Sparta, hereafter to be recounted, after the taking of Sphakteria. The Platæans, obeying the simple instinct of wrath and vengeance, threw away this great political advantage, which the more long-sighted Periklês would gladly have turned to account. [207] Thucyd. iii, 66.