History of the Peloponnesian War

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.