Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/338

 222 SPEECH OF THE PLATAEANS [ill ignorant, but now you know all that we can say ; and we are afraid, not that we are criminals in your eyes because you have decided that we fall short of your own standard of virtue % but that we are being sacrificed to please others, and that the cause which we plead is already prejudged. 54 'Still we may urge our claims of justice against our Treat t<s either as Theban enemies, and our claims of friends or as open ene- gratitude upon you and the other nu'es. Remember our tt ,, ,, n • r i conduct (I) in the Per- Hellenes ; the recollection of our good sian War, (2) in the deeds may perhaps move you. To revolt of the Helots. y^^r short question, "Whether in this war we have done any service to the Lacedaemonians and their allies," we reply that "if we are enemies you are not wronged, because you have received no good from us ; and if you deem us friends, you who have made war upon us, and not we, are to blame." During the late peace and in the Persian War our conduct was irreproachable ; we were not the first to violate the peace, and we were the only Boeotians who took part in repelling the Persian invader and in the liberation of Hellas. Although we are an inland city, we joined in the sea-fight off Artemisium ; we were at your side when 3'ou fought in our land under Pausanias, and, whatever dangers the Hellenes underwent in those days, we took a share beyond our strength in all of them. And you, Lacedaemonians, more especially should remember how at the time when Sparta was panic-stricken by the rebellion of the Helots, who seized Ithome after the earthquake ^, we sent a third part of our own citizens to your aid ; these are things not to be forgotten. 55 'Such was the spirit which animated us in the great days of old ; not until later did we become your enemies, and that was originally your own fault. For when we sought your help against the violence of the Thebans, you had rejected us and had bade us turn to the Athenians, who were " Cp. iii. 57 init. b Cp. i. loi.