Note 206 — Chapter XLVIII · FROM THE BLOCKADE OF POTIDÆA DOWN TO THE END OF THE FIRST YEAR OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR.

Thucyd. ii, 5, 6; Herodot. vii, 233. Demosthenês (cont. Neæram, c. 25, p. 1379) agrees with Thucydidês in the statement that the Platæans slew their prisoners. From whom Diodorus borrowed his inadmissible story, that the Platæans gave up their prisoners to the Thebans, I cannot tell (Diodor. xii, 41, 42).

The passage in this oration against Neæra is also curious, both as it agrees with Thucydidês on many points, and as it differs from him on several others: in some sentences, even the words agree with Thucydidês (ὁ γὰρ Ἀσωπὸς ποταμὸς μέγας ἐῤῥύη, καὶ διαβῆναι οὐ ῥᾴδιον ἦν, etc.: compare Thucyd. ii, 2); while on other points there is discrepancy. Demosthenês—or the Pseudo-Demosthenês—states that Archidamus, king of Sparta, planned the surprise of Platæa,—that the Platæans only discovered, when morning dawned, the small real number of the Thebans in the town,—that the larger body of Thebans, when they at last did arrive near Platæa after the great delay in their march, were forced to retire by the numerous force arriving from Athens, and that the Platæans then destroyed their prisoners in the town. Demosthenês mentions nothing about any convention between the Platæans and the Thebans without the town, respecting the Theban prisoners within.

On every point on which the narrative of Thucydidês differs from that of Demosthenês, that of the former stands out as the most coherent and credible.