Schneider (ad Aristotel. Politic. v, 3, 2) erroneously identifies this story with that of Doxander and the two ἐπίκληροι whom he wished to obtain in marriage for his two sons.
[430] Thucyd. v, 17.
[431] Thucyd. iii, 52. προσπέμπει δ᾽ αὐτοῖς κήρυκα λέγοντα, εἰ βούλονται παραδοῦναι τὴν πόλιν ἑκόντες τοῖς Λακεδαιμονίοις, καὶ δικασταῖς ἐκείνοις χρήσασθαι, τούς τε ἀδίκους κολάζειν, παρὰ δίκην δὲ οὐδένα.
[432] Pausan. iii, 9, 1.
[433] Thucyd. iii, 60. ἐπειδὴ καὶ ἐκείνοις παρὰ γνώμην τὴν αὑτῶν μακρότερος λόγος ἐδόθη τῆς πρὸς τὸ ἐρώτημα ἀποκρίσεως. αὑτῶν here means the Thebans.
[434] See this point emphatically set forth in Orat. xiv, called Λόγος Πλαταϊκὸς, of Isokratês, p. 308, sect. 62.
The whole of that oration is interesting to be read in illustration of the renewed sufferings of the Platæans near fifty years after this capture.
[435] Thucyd. iii, 54-59. Dionysius of Halikarnassus bestows especial commendation on the speech of the Platæan orator (De Thucyd. Hist. Judic. p. 921). Concurring with him as to its merits, I do not concur in the opinion which he expresses that it is less artistically put together than those other harangues which he considers inferior.
Mr. Mitford doubts whether these two orations are to be taken as approximating to anything really delivered on the occasion. But it seems to me that the means possessed by Thucydidês for informing himself of what was actually said at this scene before the captured Platæa must have been considerable and satisfactory: I therefore place full confidence in them, as I do in most of the other harangues in his work, so far as the substance goes.
[436] Thucyd. iii, 65.