History of the Peloponnesian War

When the Athenians were coming towards them, the Aeginetae left the wall which they happened to be then building toward the sea-side and retired up into the city above where they dwelt, and which was not above ten furlongs from the sea.

There was also with them one of those garrisons which the Lacedaemonians had distributed into the several parts of the country; and these, though they helped them to build the fort below, yet would not now enter with them into the town, though the Aeginetae entreated them, apprehending danger in being cooped up within the walls; and therefore retiring into the highest ground, lay still there, as finding themselves too weak to give them battle.

In the meantime the Athenians came in, and marching up presently with their whole army, won Thyrea, and burnt it, and destroyed whatsoever was in it. The Aeginetae, as many as were not slain in the affray, they carried prisoners to Athens, amongst whom Tantalus also, the son of Patroclus, captain of such Lacedaemonians as were amongst them, was wounded and taken alive.

They carried likewise with them some few men of Cythera, whom for safety's sake they thought good to remove into some other place. These therefore, the Athenians decreed, should be placed in the islands; and that the rest of the Cythereans at the tribute of four talents should inhabit their own territory; that the Aeginetae, as many as they had taken (out of former inveterate hatred), should be put to death; and that Tantalus should be put in bonds amongst those Lacedaemonians that were taken in the island.

In Sicily the same summer was concluded a cessation of arms, first between the Camarinaeans and the Geloans; but afterwards the rest of the Sicilians, assembling by their ambassadors out of every city at Gela, held a conference amongst themselves for making of a peace. Wherein, after many opinions delivered by men disagreeing and requiring satisfaction, every one as he thought himself prejudiced, Hermocrates, the son of Hermon, a Syracusian, who also prevailed with them the most, spake unto the assembly to this effect:

"Men of Sicily, I am neither of the least city nor of the most afflicted with war that am now to speak and to deliver the opinion which I take to conduce most to the common benefit of all Sicily.

Touching war, how calamitous a thing it is, to what end should a man, particularising the evils thereof, make a long speech before men that already know it? For neither doth the not knowing of them necessitate any man to enter into war, nor the fear of them divert any man from it, when he thinks it will turn to his advantage. But rather it so falls out that the one thinks the gain greater than the danger; and the other prefers danger before present loss.