Panathenaicus (91-95)

For the Lacedaemonians were not satisfied with wronging these cities and men of this character, but treated in the same way those who had set out with them from the same country, joined with them in the same expedition, and shared with them the same perils[*]—I mean the Argives and the Messenians. For they determined to plunge these also into the very same misfortunes which had been visited upon their former victims.[*] They did not cease laying siege to the Messenians until they had driven them from their territory, and with the same object they are even now making war upon the Argives.[*]

Furthermore, it would be strange if, having spoken of these wrongs, I failed to mention their treatment of the Plataeans. It was on the soil of Plataea that the Lacedaemonians had encamped with us and with the other allies, drawn up for battle against our enemies;[*] there they had offered sacrifices to the deities worshipped by the Plataeans;[*]

and there we had won freedom, not only for the Hellenes who fought with us, but also for those who were compelled to be on the side of the Persians,[*] and we accomplished this with the help of the Plataeans, who alone of the Boeotians fought with us in that war.[*] And yet, after no great interval of time, the Lacedaemonians, to gratify Thebes,[*] reduced the Plataeans by siege and put them all to the sword with the exception of those who had been able to escape through their lines.[*] Little did Athens resemble Sparta in the treatment of these peoples;

for, while the Lacedaemonians did not scruple to commit such wrongs both against the benefactors of Hellas and against their own kinsmen,[*] our ancestors, on the other hand, gave the surviving Messenians a home in Naupactus[*] and adopted the Plataeans who had escaped with their lives as Athenian citizens and shared with them all the privileges which they themselves enjoyed.[*] So that if we had nothing else to say about these two cities, it is easy to judge from these instances what was the character of each and which of the two laid waste more and greater cities.

I perceive that my feelings are changing to the opposite of those which I described a little while ago. For then I fell into a state of doubt and perplexity and forgetfulness, but now I realize clearly that I am not keeping the mildness of speech which I had when I began to write my discourse; on the contrary, I am venturing to discuss matters about which I did not think that I should speak, I am more aggressive in temper than is my wont, and I am losing control over some of the things which I utter because of the multitude of things which rush into my mind to say.