History of the Peloponnesian War

The Boeotians set up a trophy and took up their own dead; then, having stripped the dead of the enemy and left a guard over them, they retired to Tanagra, and there planned an assault upon Delium.

Meanwhile a herald from Athens, coming to ask for their dead, met a Boeotian herald, who turned him back, telling him he would accomplish nothing until he himself returned.[*](ie. to the Boeotian camp from the Athenian, to which he was carrying a message.) The latter then came before the Athenians and gave them the message from the Boeotians: that they had not done right in transgressing the usages of the Hellenes;

for it was an established custom of them all, when invading one another's country to abstain from the sanctuaries therein, whereas the Athenians had fortified Delium and now dwelt in it, doing there whatsoever men do in a profane place, even drawing for common use the water which was untouched by themselves except for use in lustrations connected with the sacrifices.

Wherefore the Boeotians, in behalf of the god and of themselves, invoking the deities worshipped at the common altars and also Apollo, gave them notice to come out themselves from the temple and carry off what belonged to them.[*](ie. their dead.)

When the herald had spoken, the Athenians sent a herald of their own to the Boeotians, saying that they had done no injury to the temple, and would not damage it wilfully in the future; for they had not entered it at the outset with any such intent, but rather that from it they might defend themselves against those who were wronging them.

And the law of the Hellenes was, they said, that whosoever had dominion over any country, be it larger or smaller, to them tile sanctuaries also always belonged, to be tended, so far as might be possible, with whatsoever rites had hitherto been customary.[*](Or, reading πρὸς τοῖς εἰωθόσι with the MSS., “to be tended, besides the usual rites, with such others as they might be able to use.”)

Indeed the Boeotians, and most others who had driven out any people and taken forcible possession of their country, had at first attacked the temples as alien but now possessed them as their own.

And they themselves, if they had been able to conquer more of the Boeotian territory, would have held it; but as it was, they would not depart from that portion in which they were, at least of their free will, considering it their own.

The water, moreover, they had disturbed in their sore need, which they had not wantonly brought upon themselves; they had been forced to use the water while defending themselves against the Boeotians who had first invaded their land.