History of the Peloponnesian War

Consider, then, once more after our withdrawal, and reflect many times in your deliberations that your fatherland is at stake, your one and only fatherland, and that upon one decision only will depend her fate for weal or woe.”

So the Athenians retired from the conference; and the Melians, after consulting together in private, finding themselves of much the same opinion as they had expressed before, answered as follows: