74.
When the answer came, the Plataeans resolved not to desert the Athenians, but patiently
to1 look on, if they must, while the Lacedaemonians wasted their country, and to
endure the worst.
No one was henceforward to leave the town, but answer was to be made from the walls
that they could not possibly consent to the Lacedaemonian proposal.
[2]
King Archidamus, as soon as he received the reply, before proceeding to action, fell to
calling upon the Gods and heroes of the country in the following words:—
'O ye Gods and heroes who possess the land of Plataea, be our witnesses that our
invasion of2 this land in which our fathers prayed to you when they conquered the Persians,
and which you made a propitious battle-field to the Hellenes, has thus far been
justified, for the Platacans first deserted the alliance; and that if we go further we
shall be guilty of no crime, for we have again and again made them fair proposals and
they have not listened to us.
Be gracious to us and grant that the real authors of the iniquity may be punished, and
that they may obtain revenge who lawfully seek it.'
Thucydides translated into English; with introduction, marginal analysis, notes, and indices. Volume 1. Thucydides. Benjamin Jowett. translator. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1881.
This text was converted to electronic form by optical character recognition and has been proofread to a high level of accuracy.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.