Plataicus

​I, for my part, believe that no accusation or charge ought to have greater force than oaths and treaties; nevertheless, if some must suffer because of their alliance with the Lacedaemonians, the Plataeans would not justly have been singled out from all the Greeks; for we were subject to them not willingly, but by compulsion.

​For who would believe that we had reached such a pitch of folly as to value more those who enslaved our homeland than those who shared their own city with us? But indeed, I think, it was difficult for them, inhabiting as they did a small city, to make any revolutionary attempt, while those others possessed so great a power, and moreover, when a harmost had been established, a garrison was inside, and so great an army was at Thespiae, ​by whom we would have been destroyed not only more quickly than by the Thebans, but also more justly; for it was not fitting for these men to bear a grudge about the events of that time when there was peace, whereas those others, having been betrayed in the war, would reasonably have exacted the greatest punishment from us.

​And I think you are not unaware that many of the other Greeks also were forced to follow those others with their bodies, but in their goodwill were with you. What opinion must we expect them to have, if they hear that the Thebans have persuaded the people of Athens that no one who was under the Lacedaemonians is to be spared?

​For their argument will appear to mean nothing else than this; for they have destroyed our city not by making an individual accusation against it, but one which they will have to say in like manner against those others as well. Concerning these things, you must deliberate and see to it that the insolence of these men does not reconcile those who formerly hated the rule of the Lacedaemonians, and make them think that alliance with them is their salvation.

​Reflect that you took up the most recent war not for your own liberty nor for that of your allies, for you all possessed it, but for those who were being deprived of their autonomy contrary to the oaths and treaties. It would indeed be the most cruel of all things, if you should now look on while those cities which you thought ought not to be enslaved to the Lacedaemonians are being destroyed by the Thebans, who are so far from imitating your gentleness, that what seems to be the most terrible of all things, ​namely, to be taken captive in war, would have been better for us to suffer at your hands than to meet with this fate from these men as neighbors. For those who were captured by force by you were immediately freed from a harmost and from servitude, and now they share in the council and in liberty; whereas of those who live near these men, some are enslaved no less than purchased slaves, and others they will not cease from persecuting until they have reduced them to the same condition as us. And they accuse the Lacedaemonians, ​because they seized the Cadmea and established garrisons in the cities, while they themselves, not sending in guards but razed the walls of some and utterly destroyed others, think they are doing nothing terrible; but they have come to such a pitch of shamelessness that they demand that all the allies care for their own safety, while they establish themselves as masters of the servitude of others.

​And yet who would not hate the greed of these men, who seek to rule over the weaker, but think they ought to have equal terms with the stronger, and grudge your city the land given by the Oropians, while they themselves by force plunder the land of others?

​And in addition to their other evils, they say that they did these things for the common good of the allies. And yet, since there is a council here and your city is able to deliberate better than that of the Thebans, they ought not to have come to make a defense for what has been done, but should have come to you to deliberate before doing any of these things.