Book 3
52.4
When they were come, no charge was preferred against them; but they called them forward, and merely asked them this question, Had they in any particular done the Lacedaemonians and the allies any service during the present war?
52.5
They made a speech [in reply], for they had requested permission to speak at greater length, and had deputed to plead their cause Astymachus the son of Asopolaus, and Lacon the son of Aeimnestus, who came forward and said as follows:
53.1
"The surrender of our city, Lacedaemonians, we made with full confidence in you, not supposing that we should be subjected to such a trial as this, but that it would be one more consistent with law; and with an agreement that we should not, as we now are, be at the mercy of any other judges but yourselves; thinking that so we should best obtain what was fair.
53.2
But as things are, we fear that we have failed at once in both expectations. For with reason we suspect that our contest is Literally, for the most fearful things. for life or death, and that you will not prove impartial; inferring this from the fact of there having been made against us no previous charge for us to reply to, (but it was ourselves who requested permission to speak,) and from the question put to us being so concise; a true answer to which tells against us, while a false one is open to refutation.
53.3
Being involved, however, in perplexity on all sides, we are compelled, and it seems the safer course, to say something at all risks; for the words that had been left unspoken might occasion to men in our situation the self-accusing thought, that if they had been spoken, they might have saved us.
