History of the Peloponnesian War

The commissioners of the Melians answered: “The fairness of the proposal, that we shall at our leisure instruct one another, is not open to objection, but these acts of war, which are not in the future, but already here at hand, are manifestly at variance with your suggestion. For we see that you are come to be yourselves judges of what is to be said here, and that the outcome of the discussion will in all likelihood be, if we win the debate by the righteousness of our cause and for that very reason refuse to yield, war for us, whereas if we are persuaded, servitude.”