History of the Peloponnesian War

The Boeotians, after erecting a trophy, taking up their own dead, stripping those of the enemy, and leaving a guard over them, retired to Tanagra, and formed plans for assaulting Delium.

Meanwhile, a herald from the Athenians, coming to ask back the dead, met a Boeotian herald, who turned him back, and told him that he would gain nothing before he himself had come back again. Then he went to the Athenians, and delivered the message of the Boeotians, viz.

that they had not acted right in violating the laws of the Greeks. For it was a principle acknowledged by all, that in an invasion of each other's territory, they should abstain from injuring the temples that were in it.

But the Athenians had fortified Delium, and were living in it, every thing that men do in profane ground being done there; and they drew and used for ordinary purposes the water which was never touched by themselves, except to use in the laver of purification.