History of the Peloponnesian War

And being every way full of hopes, they purposed without delay to fall close to the war, making account, if this were well ended, both to be free hereafter from any more such dangers as the Athenians, if they had gotten Sicily, would have put them into, and also, having pulled them down, to have the principality of all Greece now secure unto themselves.

Whereupon Agis, their king, went out with a part of his army the same winter from Deceleia and levied money amongst the confederates for the building of a navy; and turning into the Melian gulf, upon an old grudge took a great booty from the Oetaeans, which he made money of, and forced those of Pthiotis, being Achaians, and others in those parts subjects to the Thessalians (the Thessalians complaining and unwilling) to give them hostages and money. The hostages he put into Corinth, and endeavoured to draw them into the league.

And the Lacedaemonians imposed upon the states confederate, the charge of building one hundred galleys; that is to say, on their own state and on the Boeotians, each twenty-five; on the Phoceans and Locrians, fifteen; on the Corinthians, fifteen; on the Arcadians, Sicyonians, and Pellenians, ten; and on the Megareans, Troezenians, and Hermionians, ten. And put all things else in readiness presently with the spring to begin the war.

The Athenians also made their preparations as they had designed, having gotten timber and built their navy this same winter, and fortified the promontory of Sunium that their cornboats might come about in safety. Also they abandoned the fort in Laconia, which they had built as they went by for Sicily. And generally where there appeared expense upon anything unuseful, they contracted their charge.

Whilst they were on both sides doing thus, there came unto Agis about their revolt from the Athenians, first the ambassadors of the Euboeans. Accepting the motion, he sent for Alcamenes, the son of Sthenelaidas, and for Melanthus from Lacedaemon to go commanders into Euboea. Whom, when he was come to him with about three hundred freedmen, he was now about to send over. But in the meantime came the Lesbians, they also desiring to revolt;