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Updated: June 19, 2025
However, it was mainly the violence of the storm that enabled them to effect their escape at all. Starting from the ditch, the Plataeans went all together along the road leading to Thebes, keeping the chapel of the hero Androcrates upon their right; considering that the last road which the Peloponnesians would suspect them of having taken would be that towards their enemies' country.
After this, mixing a bowl of wine, and pouring out for himself, he says, "I drink to those who lost their lives for the liberty of Greece." These solemnities the Plataeans observe to this day.
The number of Plataeans who fell is not mentioned, but as they fought in the part of the army which was not broken, it cannot have been large. The Athenian slain were buried on the field of battle.
The Lacedaemonian judges decided that the question whether they had received any service from the Plataeans in the war, was a fair one for them to put; as they had always invited them to be neutral, agreeably to the original covenant of Pausanias after the defeat of the Mede, and had again definitely offered them the same conditions before the blockade.
While the Plataeans were thus vigorously defending themselves, and before the mound was completed, the Peloponnesians brought siege- engines to bear on the wall, one of which greatly alarmed the besieged garrison, by severely shaking their wall of timber and bricks.
And this fire was not only remarkable for its magnitude, but was also, at the end of so many perils, within an ace of proving fatal to the Plataeans; a great part of the town became entirely inaccessible, and had a wind blown upon it, in accordance with the hopes of the enemy, nothing could have saved them.
Politically indeed it only rises into pre-eminence under Epameinondas; before and afterwards Boeotian policy under the domination of Thebes is seldom either beneficent or glorious: it must be remembered, however, that the gallant Plataeans also were Boeotians.
The Athenians meanwhile, having had word of the affair sent them immediately after its occurrence, had instantly seized all the Boeotians in Attica, and sent a herald to the Plataeans to forbid their proceeding to extremities with their Theban prisoners without instructions from Athens.
For the distance between the towers was very small, and they could rush out and man the walls at a moment's notice. The Plataeans omitted no precaution which might secure success for their hazardous enterprise. Every man understood exactly the part which he had to play, and knew that his own life, and the lives of his comrades, depended on his courage and coolness.
The offer was fair, and even generous; but the Plataeans were powerless to act, without the consent of the Athenians, who held their families as hostages.
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