History of the Peloponnesian War

Indeed they did not believe that those who had surrendered were men of the same stamp with those who had fallen; and thus one of the allies of the Athenians some time after asked one of the prisoners from the island, by way of insult, if those of them who had fallen were [*]( i. e. gentlemen of the true Spartan blood, such as they were so fond of representing themselves. See Arnold's note.) honourable and brave men? to which he answered, that the [*]( One of the ordinary Spartan words to express what the other Greeks called οἰστός. Id.) atractus (meaning the arrow) would be worth a great deal, if it knew the brave men from the rest; thus stating the fact, that any one was killed who came in the way of the stones and arrows.

On the arrival of the men, the Athenians determined to keep them in prison, fill some arrangement should be made; and if the Lacedaemonians should before that invade their territory, to take them out and put them to death.

They also arranged for the defence of Pylus; and the Messenians of Naupactus sent to the place, as to the land of their fathers, (for Pylus is a part of what was formerly the Messenian country,) such of their men as were most fit for the service, and plundered Laconia, and annoyed them most seriously by means of their common dialect.