"Take us alive, Atrides, take a ransom worth our lives!"
…So they cried to the king, cries for mercy,
but only heard a merciless voice in answer:
"Cunning Antimachus! So you’re that man’s sons?
Once in the Trojan council he ordered Menelaus,
there on an embassy joined by King Odysseus,
murdered right on the spot – no safe-conduct
back to the land of Argas. You’re his sons?
Now pay for your father’s outrage, blood for blood!"
– Homer
The Iliad, Book 11, lines 153-165. Agamemnon is killing many Trojans on the battlefield. No pity is shown to the brothers Pisander and Hippolochus by Agamemnon, who believes in the ancient Greek justice of blood revenge, that sons should pay for the sins of their fathers. He cuts them down mercilessly because their father ordered Menelaus and Odysseus to be killed when they were on an embassy to the Trojan council.