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.

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.

The same winter also the Chians dismantled their new fortifications, at the command of the Athenians, and in consequence of their suspecting that they would form some new designs against them: they obtained, however, pledges from the Athenians, and security (as far as they could) for their making no change in their treatment of them. And so the winter ended and the seventh year of this war, of which Thucydides wrote the history.