History of the Peloponnesian War

And they immediately despatched another trireme with all speed, that they might not find the city destroyed through the previous arrival of [*]( The common reading δευτέρας is abandoned by all the best editors; and therefore it is not without great diffidence that I confess my inability to understand why it need be so. The sense of the passage would be equally good if it were translated, that by the previous arrival of the second, they might avoid finding the city ruined : and I cannot but think such a method borne out by many other passages of our author; e. g. II. 3. 3, ξυνελέγοντο ... ὅπως μὴ διὰ τῶν ὁδῶν φανεροὶ ὦσιν ἰόντες. And again in the next section, ἐχώρουν ἐκ τῶν οἰκιῶν ἐπ᾽ αὐτοὺς, ὅπως μὴ κατὰ φῶς φαρσαλεωτέροις οὖσι προσφέρωνται, κ. τ. λ.) the first; which had the start by a day and a night.

The Mytilenaean ambassadors having provided for the vessel wine and barley-cakes, and promising great rewards if they should arrive first, there was such haste in their course, that at the same time as they rowed they ate cakes kneaded with oil and wine; and some slept in turns, while others rowed.

And as there happened to be no wind against them, and the former vessel did not sail in any haste on so [*]( Literally, monstrous. ) horrible a business, while this hurried on in the manner described; though the other arrived so much first that Paches had read the decree, and was on the point of executing the sentence, the second came to land after it, and prevented the butchery. Into such imminent peril did Mytilene come.

The other party, whom Paches had sent off as the chief authors of the revolt, the Athenians put to death, according to the advice of Cleon, amounting to rather more than one thousand. They also dismantled the walls of the Mytilenaeans, and seized their ships.

After this they did not impose any tribute on the Lesbians, but having divided the land, excepting that of the Methymnaeans, into three thousand portions, they set apart three hundred of them as consecrated to the gods, and to the rest sent out as shareholders those of their own citizens to whose lot they had fallen; with whom the Lesbians having agreed to pay in money two mince a year for each portion, farmed the land themselves.