Leave
being given, the Plataean advocate rose to address the court, and made
a most moving and eloquent appeal, which well deserves to be
reproduced in its main outlines.
"Men of Sparta," began the orator, "we surrendered our city on the
faith of your promise that the innocent should be spared, and only the
guilty condemned. But we fear that our confidence has been misplaced.
That our doom is already pronounced we have but too plain evidence, in
your sinister question, in your cold, condemning looks, in the gloomy
faces of our enemies, who have poisoned your ears against us. We have
but little hope of turning you from your purpose by anything that we
can say. Nevertheless we have resolved to speak, lest in the hour of
death we should be tormented by the thought that a word might have
saved us, and that word remained unspoken.
"In the history of the last fifty years no city in Greece has a fairer
record than ours. Though not trained to the sea, we served in the
fleet at Artemisium; we fought under Pausanias in the great battle
which decided the fate of Greece, and took part beyond our strength in
all the trials and perils of our common country. On the gratitude of
Sparta we have a special claim, for in the day of her direst
extremity, after the earthquake, when the Helots were in arms against
her, we sent a third part of our citizens to her aid.
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