History of the Peloponnesian War

And the vote of the Lacedaemonians that the treaty had been broken and tliat they must go to war was determined, not so much by the influence of the speeches of their allies, as by fear of the Athenians, lest they become too powerful, seeing that the greater part of Hellas was already subject to them.

For it was in the following manner that the Athenians found themselves face to face with those circumstances in dealing with which they rose to greatness.

When the Persians had retreated from Europe, defeated on both sea and land by the Hellenes,[*](At Salamis, Plataea, Mycale.) and those of them who with their ships had taken refuge at Mycale had perished there, Leotychides, king of the Lacedaemonians, wh1o was commander of the Hellenes at Mycale, went home with the allies from the Peloponnesus. But the Athenians, together with the allies fiom Ionia and the Hellespont,[*](The contingents from the islands and the coast of Asia Minor, who, in consequences of the battle at Mycale and the advance of the victors to Abydos, had been received into the Hellenic alliance.) who were already in revolt from the King, remained at their task and besieged Sestos, which was held by the Persians; and passing the winter there they took it, as it had been deserted by the Barbarians; and after that the contingents of the several cities sailed away from the Hellespont.

But the Athenian people, when the Barbarians had departed from their territory, straightway began to fetch back their wives and their children and the remnant of their household goods from where they had placed them for safety,[*](Salamis, Aegina, and Troezen; cf. Hdt. 8.41.) and to rebuild the city and the walls; for of the encircling wall only small portions were left standing, and most of the houses were in ruins, only a few remaining in which the chief men of the Persians had themselves taken quarters.

But the Lacedaemonians, perceiving what was in prospect, came on an embassy, partly because they themselves would have preferred to see neither the Athenians nor anyone else have a wall, but more because their allies urged them on through apprehension, not only of the size of the Athenian navy, which had hitherto not been large, but also of the daring they had shown in the Persian war.

So they requested them not to rebuild their walls, but rather to join with them in razing the walls of whatsoever towns outside the Peloponnesus had them standing, giving no indication of their real purpose or of their suspicion with regard to the Athenians, but representing that the Barbarian, if he should attack them again, would not have any stronghold to make his base of operations, as lately he had made Thebes; the Peloponnesus, they added, was large enough for all, both as a retreat and as a base of operations.