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Updated: June 19, 2025
The Athenian force alone numbered more vessels than all the other confederates, and contributed one hundred and twenty-seven triremes, partly manned by Plataeans, besides twenty vessels lent to the Chalcidians, who equipped and manned them. The Athenian fleet was commanded by Themistocles.
But when he answered that the action was before the wrong court, wishing very much to seem to no one willing to act in a lawless manner rather than exact satisfaction for my wrongs, in the first place I asked Euthycritus, whom I knew to be the oldest of the Plataeans and supposed he would be most likely to know, if he was acquainted with a Plataean Pancleon, son of Hipparmodorus. 6.
Such was their plan. But the Plataeans suspected their intention almost before it was formed, and becoming alarmed for their fellow citizens outside the town, sent a herald to the Thebans, reproaching them for their unscrupulous attempt to seize their city in time of peace, and warning them against any outrage on those outside.
"Consider also that at present the Hellenes generally regard you as a pattern of worth and honour; and if you pass an unjust sentence upon us in this which is no obscure cause, but one in which you, the judges, are as illustrious as we, the prisoners, are blameless, take care that displeasure be not felt at an unworthy decision in the matter of honourable men made by men yet more honourable than they, and at the consecration in the national temples of spoils taken from the Plataeans, the benefactors of Hellas.
The Athenians called on the Plataeans and the Spartans for aid, and the former sent their entire force of one thousand men; but the Spartans refused to give the much-needed help, because it lacked a few days of the full moon, and it was contrary to their religious customs to begin a march during this interval.
Well would it have been for the Plataeans who remained in the town if they had stood by their first purpose, and shared the fortunes of their brave comrades. Better far to have died, sword in hand, than to meet the ignoble fate which was now reserved for them. It was in the following summer, two years after the beginning of the siege, that the crisis arrived.
Then the Plataeans, taking him up, interred him in the temple of Diana Euclia, setting this inscription over him: "Euchidas ran to Delphi and back again in one day."
It seems probable that the Thebans had received some such explicit assurance as they asserted; for, on receiving the answer from Plataea, they marched away without doing any harm. No sooner were they gone than the Plataeans made all haste to get their property within the walls, and then put all their prisoners to death.
On becoming aware of the presence of the Thebans within their gates, and of the sudden occupation of the town, the Plataeans concluded in their alarm that more had entered than was really the case, the night preventing their seeing them. They accordingly came to terms and, accepting the proposal, made no movement; especially as the Thebans offered none of them any violence.
When their last man had crossed, the Plataeans went off at a run in the direction of Thebes, being assured that no one would expect them to take the road which led to their worst enemy. And the prudence of this course soon appeared, for looking back they saw the Peloponnesians hurrying with lighted torches along the road to Athens.
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