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.)