History of the Peloponnesian War

The same winter, when the Potidaeans could no longer hold out against their besiegers, the inroads of the Peloponnesians into Attica having had no more effect towards causing the Athenians to withdraw, and their provisions being exhausted, and many other horrors having befallen them in their straits for food, and some having even eaten one another; under these circumstances, I say, they make proposals for a capitulation to the generals of the Athenians who were in command against them, Xenophon son of Euripides, Histiodorus son of Aristoclides, and Phanomachus son of Callimachus;

who accepted them, seeing the distress of their army in so exposed a position, and the state having already expended 2000 talents on the siege. On these terms therefore they came to an agreement;

that themselves, their children, wives, and auxiliaries, should go out of the place with one dress each-but the women with two-and with a fixed sum of money for their journey.

According to this treaty, they went out to Chalcidice, or where each could: but the Athenians blamed the generals for having come to an agreement without consulting them; for they thought they might have got possession of the place on their own terms; and afterwards they sent settlers of their own to Potidaea and colonized it. These were the transactions of the winter; and so ended the second year of this war of which Thucydides wrote the history.