History of the Peloponnesian War

And many [*]( Poppo, Bredow, and Haack agree in considering λόγια as a more general term for any prophetic announcement whatever, in opposition to χρησμοί, which were metrical compositions, generally in hexameters or trimeter iam Dies, delivered by an oracle, and recited by persons who collected them, and were called χρησμολόγοι. For a specimen of the class, see the Birds of Aristophanes, v. 960.) prophecies were repeated, and reciters of oracles were singing many of them, both amongst those who were going to war and in the other states.

Moreover, Delos had been visited by an earthquake a short time before this, though it had never had a shock before in the memory of the Greeks; and it was said and thought to have been ominous of what was about to take place. And whatever else of this kind had happened to occur was all searched up.

The good wishes of men made greatly for the Lacedaemonians, especially as they gave out that they were the liberators of Greece. And every individual, as well as state put forth his strength to help them in whatever he could, both by word and deed,; and each thought that the cause was impeded at that point at which he himself would not be present. So angry were the generality with the Athenians;

some from a wish to be released from their dominion, others from a fear of being brought under it. With such preparations and feelings then did they enter on the contest.

Each party had the following states in alliance when they set to the war. The allies of the Lacedaemonians were these:

all the Peloponnesians within the Isthmus, except the Argives and Achaeans (these were in friendship with both parties; and the Pellenians were the only people of the Achaeans that joined in the war at first, though afterwards all of them did); and without the Peloponnese, the Megareans, Locrians, Boeotians, Phocians, Ambraciots, Leucadians, and Anactorians.

Of these, the states which furnished a navy were the Corinthians, Megareans, Sicyonians, Pellenians, Eleans, Ambraciots, and Leucadians. Those that supplied cavalry were the Boeotians, Phocians, and Locrians. The rest of them sent infantry. This then was the Lacedaemonian confederacy.

That of the Athenians comprehended the Chians, Lesbians, Plataeans, the Messenians at Naupactus, the greater part of the Acarnanians, the Corcyreans, the Zacynthians: also some other states which were tributary amongst the following nations; as the maritime parts of Caria, and Doris adjacent to it, Ionia, the Hellespont, the Greek towns Thrace-ward; the islands, which were situated between the Peloponnese and Crete, towards the east, [*]( I am inclined to think that αἱ ἂλλαι κυκλάδες may signify the more westerly part of the group, in opposition to πρὸς ἥλιον ἀνίσχουσα. Otherwise Bloomfield's must be the only correct version; namely, all the Cyclades, etc. The fact of both Melos and Thera being amongst the most southerly of all the islands seems entirely to overthrow Göller's interpretation of the passage, which would refer αἱ ἄλλαι κυκλάδες to the islands east of Greece Proper, in contradistinction to the Peloponnese and Crete.) and all the rest of the Cyclades except Melos and Thera.

Of these, the Chians, Lesbians, and Corcyraeans furnished a naval force, the rest of them infantry and money.