Kitap 3
During the following summer, when the grain428 B.C. was ripening, the Peloponnesians and their allies made an expedition into Attica under the leadership of Archidamus son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians, and settling in camp proceeded to ravage
the land. And sallies were made as usual by the Athenian cavalry wherever opportunity offered, thus preventing the great mass of the enemy's light-armed troops from going beyond their watch-posts and laying waste the districts near
the city. The invaders remained as long as their provisions lasted, then withdrew and dispersed to their several cities.
Directly after the invasion of the Peloponnesians, all Lesbos,Mytilene was an Oligarchical state with dependent towns, Antissa, Pyrrha, and Eresus, only Methymna on the northern coast with Athens. For the revolt, cf. Diod. Sic. xii. 45. The complaint of the Mytilenaeans was founded on the Athenian attempt to prevent their centralisation. See W. Herbst, Der Abfall Mytilenes, 1861; Leithäuser, Der Abfall Mytilenes, 1874. except Methymna, revolted from Athens. The Lesbians had wished to do this even before the war, but the Lacedaemonians had not taken them into their alliance, and even in this instance they were forced to revolt sooner than they had intended.
For they were waiting until the work should be finished of blocking their harbours, building walls, and constructing ships, and until the arrival of what they needed from the Pontus—archers and grain, and whatever else they were sending for.
But the people of Tenedos, who were at variance with them, and of Methymna, and some of the Mytilenaeans themselves, men in private station who were proxeniThe word means literally “public guest,” or “friend.” Under the condition of entertaining and assisting ambassadors and citizen of the state they represented they enjoyed certain privileges from that state, and answered pretty nearly to our Consuls and Residents, though the proxenus was always a member of the state where he served. of the Athenians, were moved by partisanship to turn informers and notify the Athenians that the Mytilenaeans were attempting to bring all Lesbos into a political union centred in Mytilene; that all their preparations were being hurried forward, in concert with the Lacedaemonians and with their kinsmen the Boeotians, with the purpose of revolting; and that unless someone should forestall them forthwith, Lesbos would be lost to Athens.
But the Athenians, distressed by the plague as well as by the war, which had recently broken out and was now at its height, thought it a serious matter to make a new enemy of Lesbos, which had a fleet and power unimpaired; and so at first they would not listen to the charges, giving greater weight to the wish that they might not be true. When, however, the envoys whom they sent could not persuade the Mytilenaeans to stop their measures for political union and their preparations, they became alarmed and wished to forestall them.
So they suddenly despatched forty ships, which happened to be ready for a cruise around the Peloponnesus, under the command of Cleïppides son of Deinias and two others;
for word had come to them that there was a festival of Apollo Maloeisie. Apollo, god of Malea, the place north of the city (cf. 3.4.5), where Apollo had a temple. outside Mytilene at which the whole populace kept holiday, and that they might hope to take them by surprise if they should make haste. And if the attempt succeeded, well and good; but if not, the generals were to order the Mytilenaeans to deliver up their ships and pull down their walls, and if they disobeyed, to go to war.
So the ships set off; and as there happened to be at Athens at the time ten Mytilenaean triremes serving as auxiliaries in accordance with the terms of their alliance, the Athenians detained them, placing their crews in custody.
But the Mytilenaeans got word of the expedition through a man who crossed over from Athens to Euboea, went thence by land to Geraestus, and, chancing there upon a merchantman that was putting to sea, took ship and on the third day after leaving Athens reached Mytilene. The Mytilenaeans, accordingly, not only did not go out to the temple of Apollo Maloeis, but barricaded the half-finished portions of the walls and harbours and kept guard.Or, with Krüger, “but also guarded the other points after throwing barricades around the half-finished portions of the walls and harbours.”
When not long afterwards the Athenians arrived and saw the state of affairs, their generals delivered their orders, and then, as the Mytilenaeans did not hearken to them, began hostilities.
But the Mytilenaeans, being unprepared for war and forced to enter upon it without warning, merely sailed out a short distance beyond their harbour, as though offering battle; then, when they had been chased to shore by the Athenian ships, they made overtures to the generals, wishing, if possible, to secure some sort of reasonable terms and thus to get rid of the fleet for the present.
The Athenian commanders accepted their proposals, being themselves afraid that they were not strong enough to make war against all Lesbos.
So the Mytilenaeans, having concluded an armistice, sent envoys to Athens, among whom was one of the informers who was by now repentant, in the hope that they might persuade them to recall their fleet, on the understanding that they themselves would not start a revolution.
Meanwhile they also sent envoys to Lacedaemon in a trireme, which eluded the Athenian fleet lying at anchor at Malea north of the town; for they had no confidence in the success of their negotiations with the Athenians.
These envoys, arriving at Lacedaemon after a hard voyage through the open sea, began negotiating for some aid for their countrymen.
But when the envoys to Athens returned without having accomplished anything, the people of Mytilene and the rest of Lesbos, except Methymna, began war; the Methymnaeans, however, supported the Athenians, as did also the Imbrians, Lemnians, and a few of the other allies.
The Mytilenaeans made a sortie in full force against the camp of the Athenians, and a battle occurred in which the Mytilenaeans had the advantage; nevertheless they did not have enough confidence in themselves to bivouack on the field, but withdrew. From this time on they kept quiet, being unwilling to risk an engagement without reinforcements from Peloponnesus and elsewhere. Such reinforcements they expected, for there had come to them Meleas a Laconian and Hermaeondas a Theban, who had been sent out before the revolt, but being unable to arrive before the Athenian expedition, had sailed in secretly after the battle in a trireme, and now advised them to send a second trireme and some envoys to accompany them. And this the Mytilenaeans did.
Meanwhile the Athenians, much encouraged by the inactivity of the Mytilenaeans, summoned their allies, who put in an appearance the more quickly as they saw that no energetic measures were being taken by the Lesbians. They also placed their ships at anchor round the southern part of the town, and established a blockade against both harbours.
Thus they excluded the Mytilenaeans from the use of the sea; but as for the land, the Mytilenaeans and the other Lesbians, who had now come to their aid, dominated all the island, except the small strip held by the Athenians in the neighbourhood of their camps, and it was Malea rather than their camps that they used as a station for boats and supplies. Such was the course of the war at Mytilene.
About the same time during this summer the Athenians sent also on a cruise round the Peloponnesus thirty ships with Asopius son of Phormio as commander; for the Acarnanians had requested them to send them as commander either a son or some other kinsman of Phormio's.
And the ships as they sailed past ravaged the coast of Laconia.
Afterwards Asopius sent most of the ships back home, but had twelve with him when he reached Naupactus. Then later, having called out all the forces of the Acarnanians, he made an expedition against Oeniadae, sailing with the ships up the Achelous, while his army on land ravaged the country.
As, however, the inhabitants would not come over to him, he dismissed his army, but himself sailed to Leucas and made a descent upon Nericus. On his way back from Nericus he and part of his army were slain by the people of that place, who rallied to its defence, and by a few guards.Foreigners (φρουρῶν as opposed to τῶν αὐτόθεν ξυνβοηθησάντων), possibly Corinthians.
The Athenians first stood out to sea and then later recovered their dead from the Leucadians under a truce.
Meanwhile the Mytilenaean envoys who had been sent on the first ship, having been told by the Lacedaemonians to present themselves at Olympia, in order that the other members of the alliance also might hear them and take counsel, came to Olympia. It was the Olympiad in which DorieusDorieus son of Diagoras was victor three times in succession at Olympia (Paus. 6.7.1), as well as in numerous other contests (Paus. 6.7.4). He fought in the Decelean war on the Spartan side (8.35.1; Xen. Hell. 1.1.2), and was captured by the Athenians, but on account of his fame as an athlete was released without ransom (Xen. Hell. I. v. 19; Paus. 6.7.4, 5). the Rhodian won his second victory.
After the festival the Peloponnesians met in council, and the envoys spoke as follows:
"We are not unaware, men of Lacedaemon and members of the alliance, of the traditional feeling of the Hellenes towards men who revolt in time of war and abandon their former alliance: those who accept them as allies are indeed pleased with them in so far as they derive advantage, but they regard them as traitors to their former friends and therefore think the worse of them.
And this estimate is not unjust, provided that those who revolt and those from whom they secede held the same political views and were actuated by the same feeling of good will toward one another, and were evenly matched in preparation for war and in power, and provided also that there were no reasonable excuse for their revolt. But these conditions did not obtain between us and the Athenians;
therefore, let no one think the worse of us on the ground that we were honoured by them in time of peace and now revolt from them in time of danger.
"We will first discuss the question of justice and rectitude, especially as we are seeking an alliance, for we know that neither does friendship between men prove lasting, nor does a league between states come to aught, unless they comport themselves with transparent honesty of purpose towards one another and in general are of like character and way of thinking;
for differences in men's actions arise from the diversity of their convictions. "Now between us and the Athenians an alliance was first made when you withdrew from the Persian war but they remained to finish the work.
We became allies, however, not to the Athenians for the enslavement of the Hellenes, but to the Hellenes for their emancipation from the Persians. And as long as they maintained their hegemony on terms of equality we heartily followed their lead;
but when we saw them relaxing their hostility to the Persians and eager for the enslavement of the allies, we were no longer without alarm. And the allies, being unable, on account of the number of those who had votes, to unite for self-defence, were all enslaved except ourselves and the Chians;
while we shared their campaigns as presumably “independent” and enjoying at least the name of freedom. And we could no longer regard the Athenians as trustworthy leaders, taking as warning examples the events of the past;
for it was not likely that they, after subjugating those with whom they had entered into treaty relations together with us, would not do the same to those who were left, if ever they should possibly have the power.
"Again if we had all remained independent we should have had better assurance that they would make no violent change in our status; having, however, the majority under their hands, while still associating with us on an equal footing, they would naturally find it more irksome that our state alone still maintained its equality as compared with the majority that had already yielded, especially since they were becoming more powerful in proportion as we became more isolated.
Indeed it is only the fear that arises from equality of power that constitutes a firm basis for an alliance; for he that would transgress is deterred by the feeling that he has no superiority wherewith to make an attack.
And we were left independent for no other reason than because they clearly saw that with a view to empire they must get control of affairs by fair-seeming words and by attacks of policy rather than of force.