And when the ambassadors reached home and reported this to the
								people, despondency descended upon all; for they imagined that they
								would be reduced to slavery, and that while they were sending
								another set of ambassadors, many would die of the famine. Nevertheless, no one wanted to make any proposal involving the
								destruction of the walls; for when Archestratus said in the Senate
								that it was best to make peace with the Lacedaemonians on the terms
								they offered—and the terms were that they should tear down a portion
								ten stadia long of each of the two long walls,—he was thrown into
								prison, and a decree was passed forbidding the making of a proposal
								of this sort. This being the condition of affairs in
								Athens, Theramenes said in the Assembly that if they were willing to
								send him to Lysander, he would find out before he came back whether
								the Lacedaemonians were insistent in the matter of the walls because
								they wished to reduce the city to slavery, or in order to obtain a
								guarantee of good faith. Upon being sent, however, he stayed with
								Lysander three months and more, waiting for the time when, on
								account of the failure of provisions, the Athenians would agree to
								anything and everything which might be proposed. And when he returned in the fourth month, he reported in the Assembly
								that Lysander had detained him all this time and had then directed
								him to go to Lacedaemon, saying that he had no authority in the
								matters concerning which Theramenes asked for information, but only
								the ephors. After this Theramenes was chosen ambassador to
								Lacedaemon with 405 B.C. full power, being at the
								head of an embassy of ten. Lysander meanwhile sent Aristoteles, an Athenian exile, in company
								with some Lacedaemonians, to report to the ephors that the answer he
								had made to Theramenes was that they only had authority in the
								matter of peace and war.