Plataicus (56-60)

For these reasons we supplicate you one and all, Athenians, to restore to us our land and city, reminding the older men among you how piteous a thing it is that men of their age should be seen in misfortune and in lack of their daily bread; and the younger men we beg and implore to succor their equals in age and not to let them suffer still more evils than those I have described.

Alone of the Greeks you Athenians owe us this contribution of succor, to rescue us now that we have been driven from our homes. It is a just request, for our ancestors, we are told, when in the Persian War your fathers had abandoned this land, alone of those who lived outside of the Peloponnesus shared in their perils and thus helped them to save their city.[*] It is but just, therefore, that we should receive in return the same benefaction which we first conferred upon you.

If, however, you have determined to have no regard for our persons, yet it is not in your interest to let our country at any rate be ravaged, a country in which are left the most solemn memorials of your own valor and of that of all the others who fought at your side.

For while all other trophies have been erected by one city victorious over another, those were in commemoration of the victory of all Greece pitted against all the power of Asia. Although the Thebans have good reason for destroying these trophies, since memorials of the events of that time bring shame to them, yet it is proper that you should preserve them; for the deeds done there gave you the leadership of the Greeks.

And it is right that you should remember both the gods and the heroes who haunt that place and not permit the honors due them to be suppressed; for it was after favorable sacrifice to them that you took upon yourselves a battle so decisive that it established the freedom of both the Thebans and all the other Greeks besides. You must also take some thought of your ancestors and not be negligent of the piety due to them.