Greek Texts & Translations

59.94The Plataeans, men of Athens, alone among the Greeks came to your aid at Marathon ^note when Datis, the general of King Dareius, on his return from Eretria ^note after subjugating Euboea, landed on our coast with a large force and proceeded to ravage the country. And even to this day the picture in the Painted Stoa ^note exhibits the memorial of their valor; for each man is portrayed hastening to your aid with all speed—they are the band wearing Boeotian caps. 59.95And again, when Xerxes came against Greece and the Thebans went over to the side of the Medes, the Plataeans refused to withdraw from their alliance with us, but, unsupported by any others of the Boeotians, half of them arrayed themselves in Thermopylae against the advancing barbarian together with the Lacedaemonians and Leonidas, and perished with them; and the remainder embarked on your triremes, since they had no ships of their own, and fought along with you in the naval battles at Artemisium ^note and at Salamis. 59.96And they fought together with you and the others who were seeking to save the freedom of Greece in the final battle at Plataea against Mardonius, the King's general, and deposited the liberty thus secured as a common prize for all the Greeks. And when Pausanias, the king of the Lacedaemonians, sought to put an insult upon you, and was not content that the Lacedaemonians had been honored by the Greeks with the supreme command, and when your city, which in reality had been the leader in securing liberty for the Greeks, forbore to strive with the Lacedaemonians as rivals for the honor through fear of arousing jealousy among the allies; 59.97Pausanias, the king of the Lacedaemonians, puffed up by this, inscribed a distich upon the tripod at Delphi, which the Greeks who had jointly fought in the battle at Plataea and in the sea-fight at Salamis had made in common from the spoils taken from the barbarians, and had set up in honor of Apollo as a memorial of their valor. The distich ^note was as follows: Pausanias, supreme commander of the Greeks, when he had destroyed the host of the Medes,
dedicated to Phoebus this memorial.

He wrote thus, as if the achievement and the offering had been his own and not the common work of the allies; 59.98and the Greeks were incensed at this, and the Plataeans brought suit on behalf of the allies against the Lacedaemonians before the Amphictyons ^note for one thousand talents, and compelled them to erase the distich and to inscribe the names of all the states which had had a part in the work. This act more than any other drew upon the Plataeans the hatred of the Lacedaemonians and their royal house.

For the moment the Lacedaemonians had no means of dealing with them, but about fifty years later Archidamus, son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians, undertook in time of peace to seize their city. 59.99He did this from Thebes, through the agency of Eurymachus, the son of Leontiadas, the Boeotarch, ^note and the gates were opened at night by Naucleides and some accomplices of his, who had been won over by bribes. The Plataeans, discovering that the Thebans had got within the gates in the night and that their city had been suddenly seized in time of peace, ran to bear aid and arrayed themselves for battle. When day dawned, and they saw that the Thebans were few in number, and that only their first ranks had entered—a heavy rain which had fallen in the night prevented them from all getting in; for the river Asopus was flowing full and was not easy to cross especially in the night;— 59.100so, when the Plataeans saw the Thebans in the city and learned that their whole body was not there, they made an attack, overwhelmed them in battle, and destroyed them before the rest arrived to bear them further aid; and they at once sent a messenger to you, telling of what had been done and of their victory in the battle, and to ask for your help in case the Thebans should ravage their country. The Athenians, when they heard what had taken place, hastened to the aid of the Plataeans; and the Thebans, seeing that the Athenians had come to the Plataeans' aid, returned home. 59.101So, when the Thebans had failed in their attempt and the Plataeans had put to death those of their number whom they had taken alive in the battle, the Lacedaemonians, without waiting now for any pretext, marched against Plataea. They ordered all the Peloponnesians with the exception of the Argives to send two-thirds of their armies from their several cities, and they sent word to all the rest of the Boeotians and the Locrians and Phocians and Malians and Oetaeans and Aenians to take the field with their entire forces. ^note