Pausanias (ix, 1, 3) places this capture of Platæa in the third year (counting the years from midsummer to midsummer) before the battle of Leuktra; or in the year of the archon Asteius at Athens; which seems to me the true date, though Mr. Clinton supposes it (without ground, I think) to be contradicted by Xenophon. The year of the archon Asteius reaches from midsummer 373 to 372 B.C. It is in the latter half of the year that I suppose Platæa to have been taken. It was not merely with Platæa, but also with Thespiæ, that Thebes was now meddling. Mistrusting the dispositions of the Thespians, she constrained them to demolish the fortifications of their town;[340] as she had caused to be done fifty-two years before, after the victory of Delium,[341] on suspicion of leanings favorable to Athens. [340] I infer this from Isokrates, Or. xiv, (Plataic.) s. 21-38; compare also sect. 10. The Platæan speaker accuses the Thebans of having destroyed the walls of some Bœotian cities (over and above what they had done to Platæa,) and I venture to apply this to Thespiæ. Xenophon indeed states that the Thespians were at this very period treated exactly like the Platæans; that is, driven out of Bœotia, and their town destroyed; except that they had not the same claim on Athens (Hellen. vi, 3, 1—ἀπόλιδας γενομένους: compare also vi, 3, 5). Diodorus also (xv, 46) speaks of the Thebans as having destroyed Thespiæ. But against this, I gather, from the Plataic Oration of Isokrates, that the Thespians were not in the same plight with the Platæans when that oration was delivered; that is, they were not expelled collectively out of Bœotia. Moreover, Pausanias also expressly says that the Thespians were present in Bœotia at the time of the battle of Leuktra, and that they were expelled shortly afterwards. Pausanias at the same time gives a distinct story, about the conduct of the Thespians, which it would not be reasonable to reject (ix, 13, 3; ix, 14, 1). I believe therefore that Xenophon has spoken inaccurately in saying that the Thespians were ἀπόλιδες _before_ the battle of Leuktra. It is quite possible that they might have sent supplications to Athens (ἱκετεύοντας—Xen. Hell. vi, 3, 1) in consequence of the severe mandate to demolish their walls. [341] Thucyd. iv, 133.