(4.88)
Thus spoke Brasidas. The Acanthians, after much had been said on both sides, partly under the attraction of his words, and partly because they were afraid of losing their vintage, determined by a majority, voting secretly, to revolt from Athens. They pledged Brasidas to stand by the engagement to which the government of Sparta had sworn before they sent him out, to respect the independence of all whom he brought over to the Lacedaemonian alliance. They then admitted his army; and shortly afterwards Stagirus, a colony of the Andrians, revolted also. Such were the events of the summer.
(4.89) Meanwhile the betrayal of Boeotia into the hands of Hippocrates and Demosthenes, the Athenian generals, was on the eve of accomplishment. At the beginning of the ensuing winter Demosthenes and his fleet were to appear at Siphae, and Hippocrates simultaneously to march upon Delium. But there was a mistake about the day, and Demosthenes, with his Acarnanian and numerous other allies drawn from that neighbourhood, sailed to Siphae too soon. His attempt failed; for the plot was betrayed by Nicomachus a Phocian, of the town of Phanoteus, who told the Lacedaemonians, and they the Boeotians. Whereupon there was a general levy of the Boeotians, for Hippocrates, who was to have been in the country and to have distracted their attention, had not yet arrived; and so they forestalled the Athenians by the occupation of Siphae and Chaeronea. When the conspirators in the Boeotian cities saw that there had been a mistake they made no movement from within.
(4.90) Hippocrates had called out the whole force of Athens, metics as well as citizens, and all the strangers who were then in the city. But he did not arrive at Delium until after the Boeotians had quitted Siphae. He encamped and fortified Delium, which is a temple of Apollo. His army dug a trench around the temple and the sacred precinct, the earth which they threw up out of the trench forming a rampart; along this rampart they drove in a double palisade, and cutting down the vines in the neighbourhood of the temple threw them in between. They made a like use of the stones and bricks of the houses near, which they pulled down, and by every means in their power strove to increase the height of the rampart. Where the temple buildings did not extend they erected wooden towers at convenient places; the cloister which had once existed had fallen down. They began their work on the third day after their departure from Athens, and continued all this day and the next and the following day until the midday meal. When it was nearly finished the army retired from Delium to a distance of a little more than a mile, intending to go home. The greater part of the light-armed troops proceeded on their march, but the hoplites piled their arms and rested. Hippocrates, who had remained behind, was occupied in placing the guards at their posts, and in superintending the completion of that part of the outworks which was still unfinished.
(4.91) Meanwhile the Boeotians were gathering at Tanagra. All the forces from the different cities had now arrived. They saw that the Athenians were already marching homewards, and most of the Boeotarchs (who are in number eleven) disapproved of giving battle, because the enemy had left the Boeotian territory. For when the Athenians rested in their march they were just on the borders of Oropia. But Pagondas the son of Aeoladas, one of the two Boeotarchs from Thebes, who was in command at the time (the other being Arianthidas the son of Lysimachidas), wanted to fight,58 believing that the risk was worth encountering. So calling the soldiers to him in successive divisions, that they might not all leave their arms at once, he exhorted the Boeotians to march against the Athenians and to hazard battle, in the following words:
(4.92) 'Men of Boeotia, no one among us generals should ever have allowed the thought to enter his mind that we ought not to fight with the Athenians, even although we may not overtake them on Boeotian soil. They have crossed our frontier; it is Boeotia in which they have built a fort, and Boeotia which they intend to lay waste. Our enemies they clearly are wherever we find them, and therefore in that country out of which they came and did us mischief. But perhaps not to fight may appear to some one to be the safer course. Well then, let him who thinks so think again. When a man being in full possession of his own goes out of his way to attack others because he covets more, he cannot reflect too much; but when a man is attacked by another and has to fight for his own, prudence does not allow of reflection. In you the temper has been hereditary which would repel the foreign invader, whether he be in another's country or in your own; the Athenian invader above all others should be thus repelled, because he is your next neighbour. For among neighbours antagonism is ever a condition of independence, and against men like these, who are seeking to enslave not only near but distant countries, shall we not fight to the last? Look at their treatment of Euboea just over the strait, and of the greater part of Hellas. I would have you know, that whereas other men fight with their neighbours about the lines of a frontier, for us, if we are conquered, there will be no more disputing about frontiers, but one fixed boundary, including our whole country, for the Athenians will come in and take by force all that we have. So much more dangerous are they than ordinary neighbours. And men who, like them, wantonly assail others, will not hesitate to attack him who remains quietly at home and only defends himself; but they are not so ready to overbear the adversary who goes out of his own country to meet them, and when there is an opportunity strikes first. We have proved this in our own dealings with the Athenians. Once, owing to our internal dissensions, they took possession of our land, but we overcame them at Coronea, and gave Boeotia that complete security which has lasted to this day.59 Remember the past: let the elder men among us emulate their own earlier deeds, and the younger who are the sons of those valiant fathers do their best not to tarnish the virtues of their race. Confident that the God whose temple they have impiously fortified and now occupy will be our champion, and relying on the sacrifices, which are favourable to us, let us advance to meet them. They may satisfy their greed by attacking those who do not defend themselves; but we will show them that from men whose generous spirit ever impels them to fight for the liberties of their country, and who will not see that of others unjustly enslaved,--from such men they will not part without a battle.'
JOWETT'S FOOTNOTES
58.(From 4.91) Or, omitting the words 'who was in command at the time': 'wanted to fight while he held the command.'