2
For they stayed to have first straitened the mouth of their haven with dams of earth, to have finished their walls and their galleys then in building, and to have gotten in all that was to come out of Pontus, as archers, and victual, and whatsoever else they had sent for.
But the Tenedians, with whom they were at odds, and the Methymnaeans, and of the Mytilenaeans themselves certain particular men upon faction, being hosts to the Athenians, made known unto them that the Lesbians were forced to go all into Mytilene; that by the help of the Lacedaemonians and their kindred, the Boeotians, they hastened all manner of provision necessary for a revolt; and that unless it were presently prevented, all Lesbos would be lost.
The Athenians, afflicted with the disease, and with the war now on foot and at the hottest, thought it a dangerous matter that Lesbos, which had a navy and was of strength entire, should thus be added to the rest of their enemies, and at first received not the accusations, holding them therefore the rather feigned because they would not have them true. But after, when they had sent ambassadors to Mytilene and could not persuade them to dissolve themselves and undo their preparation, they then feared the worst and would have prevented them,
and to that purpose suddenly sent out the forty galleys made ready for Peloponnesus with Cleippedes and two other commanders.