94
The Plataeans, men of Athens, alone among the Greeks came to your aid at MarathonThis was in 490 B.C. when Datis, the general of King Dareius, on his return from EretriaA town in Euboea across the strait from Attica. after subjugating Euboea, landed on our coast with a large force and proceeded to ravage the country. And even to this day the picture in the Painted StoaSee note a on Dem. 45.17. exhibits the memorial of their valor; for each man is portrayed hastening to your aid with all speed—they are the band wearing Boeotian caps.
95
And again, when Xerxes came against Greece and the Thebans went over to the side of the Medes, the Plataeans refused to withdraw from their alliance with us, but, unsupported by any others of the Boeotians, half of them arrayed themselves in Thermopylae against the advancing barbarian together with the Lacedaemonians and Leonidas, and perished with them; and the remainder embarked on your triremes, since they had no ships of their own, and fought along with you in the naval battles at ArtemisiumArtemisiun, the northernmost promonotory of Euboea. and at Salamis.
96
And they fought together with you and the others who were seeking to save the freedom of Greece in the final battle at Plataea against Mardonius, the King’s general, and deposited the liberty thus secured as a common prize for all the Greeks. And when Pausanias, the king of the Lacedaemonians, sought to put an insult upon you, and was not content that the Lacedaemonians had been honored by the Greeks with the supreme command, and when your city, which in reality had been the leader in securing liberty for the Greeks, forbore to strive with the Lacedaemonians as rivals for the honor through fear of arousing jealousy among the allies;
