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"Will it not be strange, men of Syracuse, if those who have perished chose death on your behalf of their own accord, but that you on their behalf shall not exact punishment from even your bitterest enemies? and that, though you praise those who gave their very lives to preserve their country's freedom, you shall make it a matter of greater moment to preserve the lives of the murderers than to safeguard the honour of these men? [2] You have voted to embellish at public expense the tombs of the departed; yet what fairer embellishment will you find than the punishing of their slayers? Unless, by Zeus, it would be by enrolling them among your citizens, you should wish to leave living trophies of the departed. [3] But, it may be said, they have renounced the name of enemies and have become suppliants. On what grounds, pray, would this humane treatment have been accorded them? For those who first established our ordinances regarding these matters prescribed mercy for the unfortunates, but punishment for those who from sheer depravity practise iniquity. [4] In which category, now, are we to place the prisoners? In that of unfortunates? Why, what Fortune compelled them, who had suffered no wrong, to make war on Syracusans, to abandon peace, which all men praise, and to come here with the purpose of destroying your city? [5] Consequently let those who of their free will chose an unjust war bear its hard consequences with courage, and let not those who, if they had conquered, would have kept implacable their cruelty toward you, now that they have been thwarted in their purpose, beg off from punishment by appealing to the human kindness which is due to the prayer of a suppliant. [6] And if they stand convicted of having suffered their serious defeats because of wickedness and greed, let them not blame Fortune for them nor summon to their aid the name of 'supplication.' For that term is reserved among men for those who are pure in heart but have found Fortune unkind. [7] These men, however, whose lives have been crammed with every malefaction, have left for themselves no place in the world which will admit them to mercy and refuge.

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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