History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides

Thucydides, Vol. 1-4. Smith, Charles Foster, translator. London and Cambridge, MA: Heinemann and Harvard University Press, 1919-1923.

Accordingly they sent a trireme to Paches to announce what had been determined upon, and bidding him to despatch the Mytilenaeans with all haste;

but on the very next day a feeling of repentance came over them and they began to reflect that the design which they had formed was cruel and monstrous, to destroy a whole city instead of merely those who were guilty.