History of the Peloponnesian War

But the Plataeans, while they were still deliberating, having suspected that there would be something of this kind, and being alarmed for those outside, sent out a herald to the Thebans, saying that they had not acted justly in what had been done, by endeavouring to seize their city in time of treaty; and told them not to injure what was without; else they also would put to death the men whom they had alive in their hands; but if they withdrew again from the territory, they would give the men back to them.

The Thebans give this account of the matter, and say that they swore to it. But the Plataeans do not acknowledge that they promised to give back the men immediately, but when proposals had first been made, in case of their coming to any agreement: and they deny that they wore to it. [*]( i. e. whichever of the two different statements was the more correct one. Such I think is generally the meaning of δ᾽ οὖν; and I doubt whether it has not this force, I. 3. 5. οἱ δ᾽ οὖν ὡς ἕκαστοι ῞ελληνες, κ. τ. λ. Whatever truth there may be in the theory just stated, certainly the Greeks did nothing in one united body, etc. Thus it approaches more nearly in signification to γοῦν than to the simple οὖν, with which it generally seems to be regarded as synonymous. The tragedians very frequently use it in this manner. In other passages, however, it has the proper force of each particle, and accordingly. )

At any rate the Thebans retired from the territory without having done any injury; but the Plataeans, after getting in as quickly as possible whatever they had in the country, immediately put the men to death. Those who had been taken were one hundred and eighty, and Eurymachus, with whom the traitors had negotiated, was one of them.

When they had done this, they sent a messenger to Athens, and gave back the dead to the Thebans under a truce, and arranged matters in the city to suit their present circumstances, as seemed best to them.—Now news had immediately been taken to the Athenians of what had been done with respect to the Plataeans;

and they straightway seized as many of the Boeotians as were in Attica, and sent a herald to Plataea, with orders to forbid their proceeding to extremities, in the case of the Thebans whom they had in their hands, till they also should take counsel about them: