37.
Cleon and Demosthenes saw that if the Lacedaemonians gave way one step more they would be1 destroyed by the Athenians; so they stopped the engagement and held back their own army, for they wanted, if possible, to bring them alive to Athens. They were in hopes that when they heard the offer of terms their courage might be broken, and that they might be induced by their desperate situation to yield up their arms.
[2]
Accordingly they proclaimed to them that they might, if they would, surrender at discretion to the Athenians themselves and their arms.
1 Cleon and Demosthenes invite the Lacedaemonians to surrender.
Thucydides translated into English; with introduction, marginal analysis, notes, and indices. Volume 1. Thucydides. Benjamin Jowett. translator. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1881.
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