Book 3
THE following summer, as soon as the corn was ripe, the Peloponnesians and their allies invaded Attica, under the command of Archidamus, son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians. There they encamped, and laid waste the land;
while charges were made upon them, as usual, by the Athenian cavalry, wherever opportunity offered; and they prevented the main host of the light-armed from advancing far from Literally, from their arms, i. e. the place in which the spears and shields of the heavy-armed soldiers were piled; and so, in a more general sense, the camp where they were quartered. their camp, and damaging the property near the city.
After remaining in the country the time for which they had taken provisions, they returned and dispersed to their respective cities.
Immediately after the invasion of the Peloponnesians, all Lesbos, with the exception of Methymna, revolted from the Athenians; having wished indeed to do so before the commencement of the war, (the Lacedaemonians, however, did not accept their offers,) and yet compelled even now to execute their purpose sooner than they intended.
For they were inclined to wait the completion of the moles for the security of their harbours, and of the building of their walls and ships, and the arrival of all that was to come from the Pontus, namely, bowmen and corn, and whatever they had sent for.
[But this they were prevented doing;] The γάρ in this sentence refers to ἀναγκασθέντες in the first section; a that in the preceding one does to διενοοῦντο. for the Tenedians, who were at variance with them, and the Methymnaeans, and even some private individuals of the Mytilenaeans, under the influence of party spirit, as proxeni of the Athenians informed that people that the Mytilenaeans were forcibly bringing [the rest of] Lesbos into union with their own city, and hurrying all their preparations for a revolt, in conjunction with the Lacedaemonians and Boeotians, i. e. of the Aeolic race, to which most of the northern states of Greece considered themselves to belong, and amongst the rest the Boeotians, who had chiefly composed the colony headed by Penthilus, the son of Orestes from which the Lesbians derived their origin. who were of the sale face as themselves, and that if some one did not at once anticipate their designs, they would lose Lesbos.
But the Athenians (being distressed by the plague and the war, which had so recently broken out and was now at its height) thought it a serious business to incur the additional hostility of Lesbos, with her fleet and power hitherto unimpaired; and were not at first disposed to listen to the charges, allowing too much weight to their wish that it might not be true. When, however, they had even sent ambassadors without prevailing on the Mytilenaeans to stop their measures for the union and their preparations, they were alarmed, and wished to reduce them by surprise.
Accordingly they despatched with all haste forty ships that happened to have been equipped for cruising round the Peloponnese, under the command of Cleïppides son of Dinias, and two colleagues.
For information had been brought them that there was a festival in honour of the Malean Apollo outside the city, at which all the people of the Mytilenaeans kept holyday; and there was reason to hope that by coming with all speed they would thus fall upon them by surprise. If then the attempt should succeed, [all would be well]; if not, they i. e. the commanders. The infinitive seems to depend upon ἐκέλευον or some such word, understood should charge the Mytilenaeans to deliver up their fleet and dismantle their walls;
and if they did not obey, should make war upon them. So the ships set sail; but the ten triremes of the Mytilenaeans, which had come to them as a reinforcement, according to the terms of their alliance, were detained by the Athenians, and the crews of them were put in prison.
The Mytilenaeans, however, were informed of the expedition against them by a man who crossed over from Athens to Euboea, and having gone by land to Geraestus, there found a merchant-vessel getting under weigh, and so proceeded by sea, and arrived at Mytilene the third day after leaving Athens. Accordingly they both abstained from going out to the temple at Malea, and, for the rest, barricaded and kept guard around their half-finished walls.
When the Athenians sailed up soon after and saw this, the commanders delivered their orders; and as the Mytilenaeans did not obey them, they commenced hostilities.
Being thus compelled to go to war while unprepared, and without any notice, the Mytilenaeans sailed out with their fleet to battle, a short distance from their harbour; but when driven to shore by the Athenian ships, they then proposed terms to the commanders, wishing, if they could, to get the squadron sent back for the present on any reasonable conditions.
The Athenian commanders agreed to their proposals, having fears on their side also, that they might not be able to carry on war with the whole of Lesbos.
Accordingly, having concluded an armistice, the Mytilenaeans sent to Athens one of their accusers, who now repented [of what he had said], and some others, to try if by any means they might persuade them to let the squadron return, on the belief of their meditating no innovation.
In the mean time they also sent ambassadors to Lacedaemon in a trireme, having escaped the observation of the Athenian fleet, which was anchored at Malea, northward of the city; for they were not confident of the success of the answer from Athens.
These having reached Lacedaemon with much trouble across the open sea, negotiated for some succours being sent to them.
When the ambassadors from Athens came back without having effected any thing, the Mytilenaeans commenced hostilities, and all the rest of Lesbos excepting [the people of] Methymna; but these had reinforced the Athenians, with the Imbrians, Lesbians, and some few of the rest of the allies.
The Mytilenaeans then made a sally with all their forces against the camp of the Athenians; and a battle was fought, in which though the former had the advantage, they neither spent the night on the field, nor felt any confidence in themselves, but withdrew. After this they remained quiet, wishing to hazard a battle in conjunction with additional troops from the Peloponnese, if any force should join them: (for there had come to them Meleas, a Lacedaemonian, and Hermaeondas, a Theban, who had been despatched before the revolt, but not being able to anticipate the expedition of the Athenians, sailed up by stealth in a trireme after the battle, and advised them to send another trireme and ambassadors in company with themselves which they did.)
The Athenians, on the other hand, being much assured by the quiet of the Mytilenaeans, were calling allies to join them, who came much quicker from seeing no vigour on the part of the Lesbians; and Göller differs from Arnold's interpretation which I have given, and takes τὸ πρὸς νότον with ἐτείχισαν, thinking that both the camps were to the south of the city, one on the east, the other on the west side of it. See their notes, and also that of Bishop Thirlwall, vol. iii. p. 173. bringing round their ships to a new station on the south of the town, they fortified two camps, one on each side of the town, and established their blockades at both the harbours.
Thus they excluded the Mytilenaeans from the use of the sea; but of the whole of the land they were still masters, with the rest of the Lesbians who had now come to their assistance; while the Athenians commanded only the small extent round their camps, Malea being rather a station for their ships and a market [than any thing else]. Such were the features of the war about Mytilene.
About the same period of this summer the Athenians also despatched thirty ships to the Peloponnese, with Asopius son of Phormio as commander; the Acarnanians having requested them to send them either a son or other relative of his to take the command.
The ships, as they coasted along, ravaged the maritime towns of Laconia.
Afterwards Asopius sent back home the greater part of them, but himself went to Naupactus with twelve; and subsequently, having raised the whole population of the Acarnanians, marched against $Oeniadae; sailing with his fleet by the Achelous, and his army by land laying waste the country.
When it did not surrender, he dismissed his land-forces, and having himself sailed to Leucas, and made a descent upon Nericus, was cut off on his return, and some part of his army with him, by the people of the neighbourhood who had come to the rescue, and some few guard-troops.
The Athenians, after sailing away, subsequently recovered their dead from the Leucadians by treaty.
Now the ambassadors of the Mytilenaeans sent out in the first ship, being told by the Lacedaemonians to come to Olympia, in order that the rest of the confederates also might hear and consult upon their case, accordingly went thither. It was the Olympiad at which Dorieus the Rhodian gained his second victory.
And when after the festival they came to a conference, the envoys spoke as follows:
"With the settled principle of the Greeks with regard to a case like ours], Lacedaemonians and allies, we are well acquainted; for when men revolt in war, and leave their former confederacy, those who receive them are pleased with them so far as they derive benefit from them; but inasmuch as they consider them traitors to their former friends, they have a meaner opinion of them.
And this is no unfair estimate of their conduct, supposing that both those who revolt, and those from whom they separate, agreed in their views and in kindly feeling, and were equally matched in resources and power, and no reasonable ground for the revolt previously existed. But this was not the case with us and the Athenians;
nor ought we to be worse thought of by any one for revolting from them in the time of their peril, when we were honoured by them in time of peace.
" For it is on the justice and goodness of our cause that we will first address you, especially as we are requesting the favour of your alliance; knowing that neither friendship between individuals, nor league between communities, is ever lasting, unless According to Göller, φίλοι is understood after γίγνοιτο; according to Poppo φιλία καὶ κοινωνία before it. I prefer the former construction. they formed the connexion with an appearance of good principle towards each other, and were of congenial dispositions in other respects; for from difference of feelings difference of conduct also arises.
Now between us and the Athenians alliance was first made when you left us, and withdrew from the Median war, while they stood by us to finish the business.
We became allies, however, not to the Athenians for the enslaving of the Greeks, but to the Greeks for their liberation from the Mede. And so long as they led us on equal terms, we followed them heartily;
but when we saw them relaxing in their hostility to the Mede, and Or, as Poppo takes it, bringing on the subjugation. undertaking to enslave the Greeks, we were no longer without alarm.
Being incapable, however, through the number of those who had votes, to join together and defend themselves, the allies were reduced to slavery, except ourselves and the Chians; but we joined their enterprises as independent, forsooth, and free-in name. And now we had no longer in the Athenians such leaders as we could trust, having before us the examples that were already given:
for it was not likely that they should reduce to subjection those whom they had taken into treaty along with us, and not do the same to the rest, if ever they had the power.
"If indeed we had all been still independent, they might have been better trusted by us not to attempt any innovation: but having the majority subject to them, while they associated with us on terms of equality; and comparing the submission of the greater part with our alone being treated as equals, they would naturally brook it the worse; especially as they were themselves growing more powerful than ever, and we more destitute. But equality of fear is the only sure basis of an alliance;
for then the party that wishes to commit any offence is deterred by the knowledge that he would not attempt it with any advantage on his side.
Again, we were left independent for no other reason than inasmuch as their schemes of empire appeared attainable by specious language, and encroachment in the way of policy rather than of force.