History of the Peloponnesian War

in the rest, they were fed by such only as put in thither by stealth; and yet there was both corn and other food left in the island. For their captain Epitadas had distributed it more sparingly than he needed to have done.

So the Athenians and the Peloponnesians departed from Pylus, and went home both of them with their armies. And the promise of Cleon, as senseless as is was, took effect; for within twenty days he brought home the men as he had undertaken.

Of all the accidents of this war, this same fell out the most contrary to the opinion of the Grecians. For they expected that the Lacedaemonians should never, neither by famine nor whatsoever other necessity, have been constrained to deliver up their arms, but have died with them in their hands, fighting as long as they had been able, and would not believe that those that yielded were like to those that were slain.

And when one afterwards of the Athenian confederates asked one of the prisoners, by way of insulting, if they which were slain were valiant men, he answered that a spindle (meaning an arrow) deserved to be valued at a high rate if it could know what was a good man, signifying that the slain were such as the stones and arrows chanced to light on.