Greece -- History -- Peloponnesian War, 431-404 B.C.
Such were the words of the Thebans. The Lacedaemonian judges decided
that the question whether they had received any service from the
Plataeans in the war, was a fair one for them to put; as they had
always invited them to be neutral, agreeably to the original covenant
of Pausanias after the defeat of the Mede, and had again definitely
offered them the same conditions before the blockade. This offer having
been refused, they were now, they conceived, by the loyalty of their
intention released from their covenant; and having, as they considered,
suffered evil at the hands of the Plataeans, they brought them in again
one by one and asked each of them the same question, that is to say,
whether they had done the Lacedaemonians and allies any service in the
war; and upon their saying that they had not, took them out and slew
them, all without exception. The number of Plataeans thus massacred was
not less than two hundred, with twenty-five Athenians who had shared in
the siege. The women were taken as slaves. The city the Thebans gave
for about a year to some political emigrants from Megara and to the
surviving Plataeans of their own party to inhabit, and afterwards razed
it to the ground from the very foundations, and built on to the
precinct of Hera an inn two hundred feet square, with rooms all round
above and below, making use for this purpose of the roofs and doors of
the Plataeans: of the rest of the materials in the wall, the brass and
the iron, they made couches which they dedicated to Hera, for whom they
also built a stone chapel of a hundred feet square. The land they
confiscated and let out on a ten years’ lease to Theban occupiers. The
adverse attitude of the Lacedaemonians in the whole Plataean affair was
mainly adopted to please the Thebans, who were thought to be useful in
the war at that moment raging. Such was the end of Plataea, in the
ninety-third year after she became the ally of Athens.
Meanwhile, the forty ships of the Peloponnesians that had gone to the
relief of the Lesbians, and which we left flying across the open sea,
pursued by the Athenians, were caught in a storm off Crete, and
scattering from thence made their way to Peloponnese, where they found
at Cyllene thirteen Leucadian and Ambraciot galleys, with Brasidas, son
of Tellis, lately arrived as counsellor to Alcidas; the Lacedaemonians,
upon the failure of the Lesbian expedition, having resolved to
strengthen their fleet and sail to Corcyra, where a revolution had
broken out, so as to arrive there before the twelve Athenian ships at
Naupactus could be reinforced from Athens. Brasidas and Alcidas began
to prepare accordingly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account