History of the Peloponnesian War

In reverence therefore of the hopes which the Grecians have reposed in you and of the presence of Jupiter Olympius, in whose temple here we are in a manner suppliants to you, receive the Mytilenaeans into league and aid us. And do not cast us off, who (though, as to the exposing of our persons, the danger be our own) shall bring a common profit to all Greece if we prosper and a more common detriment to all the Grecians if, through your inflexibleness, we miscarry.

Be you therefore men such as the Grecians esteem you and our fears require you to be.

In this manner spake the Mytilenaeans. And the Lacedaemonians and their confederates, when they had heard and allowed their reasons, decreed not only a league with the Lesbians but also again to make an invasion into Attica. And to that purpose the Lacedaemonians appointed their confederates there present to make as much speed as they could with two parts of their forces into the isthmus; and they themselves being first there prepared engines in the isthmus for the drawing up of galleys, with intention to carry the navy from Corinth to the other sea that lieth towards Athens, and to set upon them both by sea and land.

And these things diligently did they. But the rest of the confederates assembled but slowly, being busied in the gathering in of their fruits and weary of warfare.