History of the Peloponnesian War

During the same winter the Potidaeans found themselves no longer able to endure the siege; and the raids which the Peloponnesians made into Attica did not cause the Athenians to raise the siege any more than before.[*](Thuc. 1.58.1.)Their grain had given out, and in addition to many other things which by this time had befallen them in their efforts to get bare subsistence some had even eaten their fellows. In this extremity they made proposals for a capitulation to the Athenian generals who were in charge of the operations against them, namely Xenophon son of Euripides, Hestiodorus son of Aristocleides, and Phanomachus son of Callimachus.

And the generals accepted their proposals, seeing the distress which the army was suffering in an exposed place, and taking into consideration that Athens had already spent two thousand talents[*](£400,000, $1,944,000.) on the siege.