In what invasion into your country of all that have ever been made have they failed to take part? Who, more consistently than they, have been your enemies and ill-wishers? In the Decelean WarThe Decelean War is the name given to the latter part (413-404 B.C.) of the Peloponnesian War when a Spartan force occupied the Attic post, Decelea, in 413 B.C. were they not authors of more mischief than the other invaders? When misfortune befell you,A reference to the Athenian naval defeat at Aegospotami, in 405 B.C. did not they alone of the alliesThis is an exaggeration; not only the Thebans, but the Corinthians and other Peloponnesians, voted for the destruction of Athens, but Sparta refused; cf. Xen. Hell. 2.2.19-20. vote that your city should be reduced to slavery and its territory be abandoned to pasturage as was the plain of Crisa,After the first Sacred War, at the end of the sixth century B.C., the plain of Crisa, between Delphi and the Corinthian Gulf, was declared holy ground and was dedicated to Apollo.

so that if the Lacedaemonians had been of the same opinion as the Thebans, there would have been nothing to prevent the authors of the salvation of all the GreeksIn the Persian Wars. from being themselves enslaved by the Greeks and from plunging into the most grievous misfortunes? And yet what benefaction of their own could they adduce great enough to wipe out the hatred caused by these wrongs which you would justly feel toward them?

Accordingly, to these Thebans no plea is left, such is the magnitude of their crimes, and to those who wish to speak on their behalf only this—that Boeotia is now fighting in defense of your country, and that, if you put an end to your friendship with them, you will be acting to the detriment of your allies; for it will be a matter of great consequence if the city of Thebes takes the side of the Lacedaemonians.

My opinion is, however, that it is neither profitable to the allies that the weaker should be in servitude to the stronger (in past times, in fact, we went to war to protect the weak), nor that the Thebans will be so mad as to desert the alliance and hand over their city to the Lacedaemonians; this is not because I have confidence in the character of the Thebans, but because I know that they are well aware that one of two fates necessarily awaits them—either resisting, to die and to suffer such cruelties as they have inflicted, or else, going into exile, to be in want and deprived of all their hopes.

Well then, are their relations with their fellow-citizens agreeable, some of whom they have put to death and others they have banished and robbed of their property? Or are they on friendly terms with the other Boeotians, whom they not only attempt to rule without warrant of justice, but have also in some instances razed their walls and have dispossessed others of their territory?