Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/283

 FOURTH YEAR OF THE WAR -FATE OF THE PLAT^EAXS. 201 ferred against them by ar.y one : but the simple question was put to them by the judges : " Have you, during the present war, rendered any service to the Lacedemonians or to their allies ?" The Plataeans were confounded at a question alike unexpected and preposterous : it admitted but of one answer, but before returning any categorical answer at all, they entreated permission to plead their cause at length. In spite of the opposition of the Thebans, 1 their request was granted: and Astymachus and Lakon, the latter proxenus of Sparta at Platrea, were appointed to speak on behalf of the body. Possibly, both these delegates may have spoken : if so, Thucydides has blended the two speeches into one. A more desperate position cannot be imagined, for the inter- rogatory was expressly so framed as to exclude allusion to any facts preceding the Peloponnesian war, but the speakers, though fully conscious how slight was their chance of success, disregarded the limits of the question itself, and while upholding with unshaken courage the dignity of their little city, neglected no topic which could touch the sympathies of their judges. After remonstrating against the mere mockery of trial and judgment to which they were submitted, they appealed to the Hellenic sympathies, and lofty reputation for commanding virtue, of the Lacedaemonians, they adverted to the first alliance of Plataea with Athens, concluded at the recommendation of the Lacedaemonians themselves, who had then declined, though for- mally solicited, to undertake the protection of the town against Theban oppression. They next turned to the Persian war, wherein Plataean patriotism towards Greece was not less con- spicuous than Theban treason, 2 to the victory gained over the Persians on their soil, whereby it had become hallowed under the promises of Pausanias, and by solemn appeals to the local gods. From the Persian war, they passed on to the flagitious attack made by the Thebans on Plataea, in the midst of the truce, 1 Thucyd. iii, GO. tireid/j nal cKeivoif ^apu -yvufnjv TTJV avTuv /AaxpoTe- pof Aoyof &6-&r) TTJC TT/JOC T& ipu~Ti[j.a uTTOKpiaec^f. avT&v here means the Thebans. Kbc, of Isokrates, p. 308, sect. 62. The whole of that oration is interesting to be read in illustration of the tenewed sufferings of the Platseans near fifty years after this capture.
 * See this point emphatical'y set forth in Orat. xir, called Aoyof Il/tarai'-