History of the Peloponnesian War

The following winter Aristides son of Archippus, a commander of the Athenian ships which had been sent out to the allies to levy contributions, arrested at Eion on the Strymon Artaphernes, a Persian, on his way from the king to Lacedaemon.

On his being conveyed to Athens, they got his despatches translated out of the Assyrian character, and read them: the substance of which, as regarded the Lacedaemonians, (though many other things were mentioned in them,) was, that the king did not understand what they would have; for though many ambassadors had come to him, no one ever made the same statement as another; if then they would but speak plainly, they might send men to him in company with this Persian.

The Athenians afterwards sent back Artaphernes in a trireme to Ephesus, and ambassadors with him; but on hearing there that king Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes, was lately dead, (for it was at that time that he died,) they returned home.