Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/340

 224 SPEECH OF THE PLATAEANS [ill outweighs the other ; for our service to you was per- formed at a time when very few Hellenes opposed their courage to the power of Xerxes ; they were then held in honour, not '^ who, looking to their own advantage, made terms with the invader*^ and were safe, but who, in the face of danger, dared the better part. Of that number were we, and there was a time when we received the highest honour at your hands, but now we fear that these same principles, which have led us to prefer a just alliance with the Athenians to an interested alliance with you, will be our destruction. Yet when men have been consistent in their conduct, others should show themselves consistent in their judgment of it^'. For true expediency is only this — to have an enduring sense of gratitude towards good allies for their services, while we^ do not neglect our own immediate interest. 57 ' Consider, before you act, that hitherto you have been generally esteemed among Hellenes to Remember your own. ,, ^ t •!•. -r i -j reputation: do not out- ^6 a pattern of nobility; if you decide rage Heiknk smtinicnt unjustly (and this judgment cannot be by alloiving Plataea, hidden, for you, the judges, are famous, whose tiatite vour, , • i i i r fathers inscribed on the ^^^ ^c, who are judged by you, are of Delphian tripod, to be good repute), mankind will be indignant bhttcd out in order to ^t the Strange and disgraceful sentence f>/ease the Thebans. i • i -hi i r which will have been passed against good men by men still better 'I The}' will not endure to see spoils taken from us, the benefactors of Hellas, dedicated by our enemies in the common temples. Will it not be deemed a monstrous thing that the Lacedaemonians should desolate Plataea ; that they, whose fathers inscribed the name of the city on the tripod at Delphi in token of her valour^, should for the sake of the Thebans blot out the " Or, reading aiirois, and referring the word to the Persians: 'who, looking to advantage, forwarded the course of the invader.' '' This may refer to the judgment of the Spartans on the Plataeans, or to the adhesion of the Plataeans to the Athenians ; see note. « Reading THJiv. ^ Cp. iii. 53 fin. • Cp. i. 132 init.