History of the Peloponnesian War

At the very beginning of the next summer a[*](424 B.C.) partial eclipse of the sun took place at new moon, and in the early part of the same month

an earthquake. Also the citizens of Mytilene and of the other cities of Lesbos who were in exile, the majority of them setting out from the mainland, hired some mercenaries from the Peloponnesus, gathered still others on the spot, and took Rhoeteum; but they restored it again without having done any damage, on receiving two thousand

Phocaean staters.[*]("The Phocaean stater was notorious for the badness of the gold (or rather electron); cf. Dem. xi. 36. It was worth about twenty-three silver drachmas. See Hultsch, Gr. und röm. Metrologie, 184.) After this they made an expedition against Antandros and took the city through treachery on the part of the inhabitants. It was, in fact, their plan to free the rest of the cities known as the Actaean cities,[*](ie. of the ἀκτή or promontory of the mainland north of Lesbos. These had been taken from Mytilene by paches (cf. 3.50.3). They are mentioned also C.I.A. i. 37.) which had hitherto been in the possession of the Athenians, though inhabited by Mytilenaeans, and above all Antandros. Having strengthened this place, where there was every facility for building ships—timber being available on the spot and Ida being near at hand —as well as for providing other equipments of war, they could easily, making it the base of their operations, not only ravage Lesbos, which was near, but also master the Aeolic towns on the mainland. Such were the plans upon which they were preparing to embark.