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. Cf. Isoc. 12.93 . 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.