History of the Peloponnesian War

The summer following, the Peloponnesians and their confederates, at the time when corn was at the highest, entered with their army into Attica under the conduct of Archidamus, the son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians, and there set them down and wasted the territory about.

And the Athenian horsemen, as they were wont, fell upon the enemy where they thought fit and kept back the multitude of light-armed soldiers from going out before the men of arms and infesting the places near the city.

And when they had stayed as long as their victual lasted, they returned and were dissolved according to their cities.

After the Peloponnesians were entered Attica, Lesbos immediately, all but Methymne, revolted from the Athenians, which though they would have done before the war and the Lacedaemonians would not then receive them, yet even now they were forced to revolt sooner than they had intended to do.

For they stayed to have first straitened the mouth of their haven with dams of earth, to have finished their walls and their galleys then in building, and to have gotten in all that was to come out of Pontus, as archers, and victual, and whatsoever else they had sent for.

But the Tenedians, with whom they were at odds, and the Methymnaeans, and of the Mytilenaeans themselves certain particular men upon faction, being hosts to the Athenians, made known unto them that the Lesbians were forced to go all into Mytilene; that by the help of the Lacedaemonians and their kindred, the Boeotians, they hastened all manner of provision necessary for a revolt; and that unless it were presently prevented, all Lesbos would be lost.

The Athenians, afflicted with the disease, and with the war now on foot and at the hottest, thought it a dangerous matter that Lesbos, which had a navy and was of strength entire, should thus be added to the rest of their enemies, and at first received not the accusations, holding them therefore the rather feigned because they would not have them true. But after, when they had sent ambassadors to Mytilene and could not persuade them to dissolve themselves and undo their preparation, they then feared the worst and would have prevented them,

and to that purpose suddenly sent out the forty galleys made ready for Peloponnesus with Cleippedes and two other commanders.

For they had been advertised that there was a holiday of Apollo Maloeis to be kept without the city and that to the celebration thereof the Mytilenaeans were accustomed to come all out of the town; and they hoped, making haste, to take them there unawares. And if the attempt succeeded, it was well; if not, they might command the Mytilenaeans to deliver up their galleys and to demolish their walls; or they might make war against them if they refused.