History of the Peloponnesian War

And it was, as I think, because Agamemnon surpassed in power the princes of his time that he was able to assemble his fleet, and not so much because Helen's suitors, whom he led, were bound by oath to Tyndareus.[*](According to the post-Homeric legend, all who paid their court to Helen engaged to defend the man of her choice against all wrong. cf. Isoc. 10.40; Paus. 3.20. 9; 3.10.9.)

It is said, furthermore, by those of the Peloponnesians who have received the clearest traditional accounts from men of former times, that it was by means of the great wealth which he brought with him from Asia into the midst of a poor people that Pelops first acquired power, and, consequently, stranger though he was, gave his name to the country, and that yet greater things fell to the lot of his descendants. For when Eurystheus set out on the expedition that resulted in his death in Attica at the hands of the Heracleidae, Atreus, his mother's brother, who chanced to have been banished by his father for the death of Chrysippus,[*](Chrysippus, his half-brother, son of Pelops and Axioche, was killed by Atreus and Thyestes at the instance of their mother Hippodameia.) was intrusted by Eurystheus with Mycenae and the sovereignty because he was a kinsman; and when Eurystheus did not return, Atreus, in accordance with the wish of the Mycenaeans, who feared the Heracleidae, and because he seemed to be a man of power and had won the favour of the multitude, received the sovereignty over the Mycenaeans and all who were under the sway of Eurystheus. And so the house of Pelops became greater than the house of Perseus.

And it was, I think, because Agamemnon had inherited all this, and at the same time had become strong in naval power beyond the rest, that he was able to collect his armament, not so much by favour as by fear, and so to make the expedition.

For it is clear that he himself brought the greatest number of ships, and that he had others with which to supply the Arcadians,[*](cf. Homer, Il. 2.576 and 612.) as Homer testifies, if he is sufficient witness for anyone. And he says, in the account of the delivery of the sceptre,[*](cf. Homer, Il. 2.101-109.) that Agamemnon "ruled over many islands and all Argos." Now, if he had not had something of a fleet, he could not, as he lived on the mainland, have been lord of any islands except those on the coast, and these would not be "many." And it is from this expedition that we must judge by conjecture what the situation was before that time.