We therefore beg of you, citizens of Athens, that you listen to our plea in a friendly
 spirit, reflecting that for us the most preposterous outcome of all would be, if those who
 have always been hostile to your city shall have regained their freedom through your
 efforts, but we, even when we supplicate you, should fail to obtain the same treatment as
 is accorded to your greatest enemies. As for the events which have occurred in the past, I see no reason why I should speak of
 them at length. For who does not know that the Thebans have portioned out our land for
 pasturage and have razed our city to the ground? But it is with respect to their argument,
 by which they hope to deceive you, that we shall try to inform you. At times, you know, they attempt to maintain that they have subjected us to this
 treatment because we were unwilling to be members of their federation. That is, to join the Boeotian Confederation, of which
 Thebes held the hegemony, and thus to be
 tributary ( SUNTELEI=N ) to the Thebans. But I
 ask you to consider, first, if on such grounds it is just to inflict penalties so contrary
 to justice and so cruel; next, if it seems to you consistent with the dignity of the city
 of the Plataeans, without their consent but under compulsion, to accept such dependence
 under the Thebans. For my part, I consider that there exists no people more overbearing
 than those who blot out the cities of each of us and compel us, when we have no use for
 it, to participate in their form of polity. Besides this, they are clearly inconsistent in their dealings with others and with us.
 For when they were unable to gain our consent, they should have gone no farther than to
 compel us to submit to the hegemony of Thebes 
 as they compelled Thespiae and Tanagra ; for in that case we should not have suffered
 irremediable misfortunes. But as it is, they have made it clear that it was not their
 intention to give us that status; on the contrary, it was our territory they coveted. I wonder to what precedent in the past they will appeal, and what conceivable
 interpretation of justice they will give, when they admit that they dictate to us in such
 matters. For if it is to our ancestral customs they look, they ought not to be ruling over
 our other cities, but far rather to be paying tribute to the Orchomenians Orchomenus ,
 stronghold of the Minyans in prehistoric times, joined the Boeotian Confederacy after
 the battle of Leuctra, 371 B.C. ; for such was the case
 in ancient times. And if they hold that the treaties are valid, which indeed in justice
 they should be, how can they avoid admitting that they are guilty of wrong and are
 violating them? For these treaties direct that our cities, the small as well as the large,
 shall all alike be autonomous.