Kitap 6
5.46
I see also the Thebans, who then See 35 above, and cp. note on iii. 13. did not succeed in persuading the Lacedaemonians to enslave you, now requesting you to allow those who saved you to perish.It is truly a noble deed that is told of your ancestors, when they did not suffer those Argives who died at the Cadmea to go unburied; After the defeat of the legendary expedition of the Seven against Thebes it was only the intervention of the Athenians which compelled the Thebans to permit the burial of the enemy’s dead. but you would achieve a far nobler deed if you did not suffer those Lacedaemonians who still live either to incur insult or to perish.
5.47
And while that other deed was also noble, when you checked the insolence of Eurystheus and preserved the sons of Heracles, The sons of Heracles, driven from Peloponnesus by Eurystheus, found protection and aid at Athens. would it not surely be an even nobler one if you saved from perishing, not merely the founders, but the whole state as well? And noblest of all deeds if, after the Lacedaemonians saved you then by a370 B.C. vote, void of danger, you shall aid them now with arms and at the risk of your lives.
5.48
Again, when even we, who by word urge you to aid brave men, are proud of doing so, it would manifestly be generous of you, who are able to aid by act, if, after being many times both friends and enemies of the Lacedaemonians, you should recall, not the harm you have suffered at their hands, but rather the favours which you have, received, and should render them requital, not in behalf of yourselves alone, but also in behalf of all Greece, because in her behalf they proved themselves brave men.
