History of the Peloponnesian War

while charges were made upon them, as usual, by the Athenian cavalry, wherever opportunity offered; and they prevented the main host of the light-armed from advancing far from [*]( Literally, from their arms, i. e. the place in which the spears and shields of the heavy-armed soldiers were piled; and so, in a more general sense, the camp where they were quartered.) their camp, and damaging the property near the city.

After remaining in the country the time for which they had taken provisions, they returned and dispersed to their respective cities.

Immediately after the invasion of the Peloponnesians, all Lesbos, with the exception of Methymna, revolted from the Athenians; having wished indeed to do so before the commencement of the war, (the Lacedaemonians, however, did not accept their offers,) and yet compelled even now to execute their purpose sooner than they intended.

For they were inclined to wait the completion of the moles for the security of their harbours, and of the building of their walls and ships, and the arrival of all that was to come from the Pontus, namely, bowmen and corn, and whatever they had sent for.

[But this they were prevented doing;] [*]( The γάρ in this sentence refers to ἀναγκασθέντες in the first section; a that in the preceding one does to διενοοῦντο.) for the Tenedians, who were at variance with them, and the Methymnaeans, and even some private individuals of the Mytilenaeans, under the influence of party spirit, as proxeni of the Athenians informed that people that the Mytilenaeans were forcibly bringing [the rest of] Lesbos into union with their own city, and hurrying all their preparations for a revolt, in conjunction with the Lacedaemonians and Boeotians, [*]( i. e. of the Aeolic race, to which most of the northern states of Greece considered themselves to belong, and amongst the rest the Boeotians, who had chiefly composed the colony headed by Penthilus, the son of Orestes from which the Lesbians derived their origin.) who were of the sale face as themselves, and that if some one did not at once anticipate their designs, they would lose Lesbos.