History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides

Thucydides, Vol. 1-4. Smith, Charles Foster, translator. London and Cambridge, MA: Heinemann and Harvard University Press, 1919-1923.

But Cleon and Demosthenes, realizing that if the enemy should give back ever so little more they would be destroyed by the Athenian army, put a stop to the battle and held back their own men, wishing to deliver them alive to the Athenians and in hopes that possibly, when they heard the herald's proclamation, they would be broken in spirit and submit to the present danger.

Accordingly, they caused the herald to proclaim that they might, if they wished, surrender themselves and their arms to the Athenians, these to decide their fate as should seem good to them.