History of the Peloponnesian War

To this effect spoke Diodotus. These being the views that were expressed in most direct opposition to one another, the Athenians, notwithstanding [their wish to reconsider the question], came to a conflict of opinion respecting them, and were nearly matched in the voting, though that of Diodotus prevailed.

And they immediately despatched another trireme with all speed, that they might not find the city destroyed through the previous arrival of [*]( The common reading δευτέρας is abandoned by all the best editors; and therefore it is not without great diffidence that I confess my inability to understand why it need be so. The sense of the passage would be equally good if it were translated, that by the previous arrival of the second, they might avoid finding the city ruined : and I cannot but think such a method borne out by many other passages of our author; e. g. II. 3. 3, ξυνελέγοντο ... ὅπως μὴ διὰ τῶν ὁδῶν φανεροὶ ὦσιν ἰόντες. And again in the next section, ἐχώρουν ἐκ τῶν οἰκιῶν ἐπ᾽ αὐτοὺς, ὅπως μὴ κατὰ φῶς φαρσαλεωτέροις οὖσι προσφέρωνται, κ. τ. λ.) the first; which had the start by a day and a night.

The Mytilenaean ambassadors having provided for the vessel wine and barley-cakes, and promising great rewards if they should arrive first, there was such haste in their course, that at the same time as they rowed they ate cakes kneaded with oil and wine; and some slept in turns, while others rowed.

And as there happened to be no wind against them, and the former vessel did not sail in any haste on so [*]( Literally, monstrous. ) horrible a business, while this hurried on in the manner described; though the other arrived so much first that Paches had read the decree, and was on the point of executing the sentence, the second came to land after it, and prevented the butchery. Into such imminent peril did Mytilene come.