Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/348

232 REPLY OF THE THEBANS [ill Stretched out their hands to you ; and although you gave them quarter, and then promised to us that you would spare them, in utter defiance of law you took their lives — was not that a cruel act? Here are three crimes which you committed within a few hours ; the breach of the agreement, the slaughter of the prisoners which followed, and the lying promise which you made to us that you would not slay them if we did no injury to your property in the fields ; and yet you insist that we are the criminals, and that you ought to be acquitted. Not so; if the Lacedaemonians give just judgment : but for all these offences you shall suffer. 67 ' We have entered into particulars, Lacedaemonians, You should know the both for your sakes and for our own, truth about the Plat- that you may know the sentence which aeaus If they had ^^^ going to pass on them to be the virtues to which they "^ 001^ pretend, they deserve j"st, and Still more rightcous the ven- a double punishment, geance which wc have taken. Do not Pity not ihem,hut their j^^ j^^^^^g y^^ softened by tales victims, r or their mis- *^ •' foi-times they may thank about their ancient virtues, if they ever theynsclves. Put the had any ; such virtues might plead for question to them again, ^^e injured, but should bring a double penalty °- on the authors of a base deed, because they are false to their own character. Let them gain nothing by their pitiful lamentations, or by appealing to 3'our fathers' tombs and their own desolate condition. We tell 3'ou that a far sadder fate was inflicted by them on our murdered youth, of whose fathers some fell at Coronea in the act of bringing Boeotia to join you, while others are left in their old age by their solitary hearths^ and entreat you, with far better reason, to punish the Plataeans. Men who suffer an unworthy fate are indeed to be pitied, but there should be joy over those who suffer justh', as these do. For their present desolation they may thank them- selves ; they might have chosen the worthier alliance, but » Cp. i. 86init.