Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/53

 PLATJEA RESTORED. 31 tablished, after the great prostration as well as disgrace which she had undergone, as traitor to Hellas and zealous in the service of Mardonius. 1 Athens, on the other hand, was at that time doing her best to break up the Boeotian federation, and to enrol its various cities as her allies ; in which project, though doubtless suggested by and conducive to her own ambition, she was at that time (460-445 B. c.) perfectly justifiable on Pan-hellenic grounds ; seeing that Thebes as their former chief had so recently enlisted them all in the service of Xerxes, and might be expected to do the same again if a second Persian invasion should be attempted. Though for a time successful, Athens was expelled from Breotia by the defeat of Koroneia ; and at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, the whole Bosotian federation (except Plate), was united under Thebes, in bitter hostility against her. The first blow of the war, even prior to any declaration, was struck by Thebes in her abor- tive nocturnal attempt to surprise Platea. In the third year of the war, king Archidamus, at the head of the full Lacedemonian force, laid siege to the latter town ; which, after an heroic defence and a long blockade, at length surrendered under the extreme pressure of famine ; yet not before one half its brave defenders had forced their way out over the blockading wall, and escaped to Athens, where all the Platasan old men, women, and children, had been safely lodged before the siege. By a cruel act which stands among the capital iniquities of Grecian warfare, the Lacedemo- nians had put to death all the Plataaan captives, two hundred in number, who fell into their hands ; the town of Plataea had been razed, and its whole territory, joined to Thebes, had remained ever since cultivated on Theban account. 2 The surviving Pla- tasans had been dealt with kindly and hospitably by the Athenians. A qualified right of citizenship was conceded to them at Athens, and when Skione was recaptured in 420 B. c., that town (vacant by the slaughter of its captive citizens) was handed over to the Plafeeans as a residence. 3 Compelled to evacuate Skione, they were obliged at the close of the Peloponnesian war, 4 to return to 1 See Vol. V. Ch. xlv, p. 327 of this History. 3 Thucyd. v, 32 ; Isokrates, Or. iv (Panegyr.) a. 126 ; Or. xii, (Panathcn.) . 1)1. 4 Plutarch, Lvsand. c. 14.
 * Thucyd. Hi, G8.