History of the Peloponnesian War

About the same time that the Lacedaemonians were in the isthmus, the Mytilenaeans marched by land, both they and their auxiliaries, against Methymne in hope to have had it betrayed unto them and, having assaulted the city, when it succeeded not the way they looked for, they went thence to Antissa, Pyrrha, and Eressus; and after they had settled the affairs of those places and made strong their walls returned speedily home.

When these were gone, the Methymnaeans likewise made war upon Antissa; but beaten by the Antisaeans and some auxiliaries that were with them, they made haste again to Methymne with the loss of many of their soldiers.

But the Athenians being advertised hereof and understanding that the Mytilenaeans were masters of the land and that their own soldiers there were not enough to keep them in, sent thither, about the beginning of autumn, Paches, the son of Epicurus, with a thousand men of arms of their own city,

who, supplying the place of rowers themselves, arrived at Mytilene and ingirt it with a single wall, save that in some places, stronger by nature than the rest, they only built turrets and placed guards in them.

So that the city was every way strongly besieged, both by sea and land, and the winter began.