History of the Peloponnesian War

The Athenians and Phormio set out from Acarnania and arrived at Naupactus, and later, at the beginning of spring, sailed back to Athens, bringing with them the captured ships and also the prisoners of free birth whom they had taken in the sea-fights. These were exchanged man for man.

And this winter ended, concluding the third year of this war of which Thucydides wrote the history.

During the following summer, when the grain[*](428 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.