History of the Peloponnesian War

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.

The Athenians also took possession of the towns on the continent of which the Mytilenaeans were masters, and they were afterwards subject to Athens. Such then was the issue of affairs as regarded Lesbos.

In the course of the same summer, after the reduction of Lesbos, the Athenians made an expedition under the command of Nicias, son of Niceratus, against the island of Minoa, which lies off Megara, and which the Megareans used as a fortress, having built a tower on it.

From this spot, being more close at hand, Nicias wished the Athenians to keep their guard [over Nisaea], instead of from Budorum and Salamis, and to prevent the Peloponnesians from sailing out thence unobserved, as was formerly the case, with triremes and privateers; and at the same time to see that nothing was imported by the Megareans.

Having therefore in the first instance taken by engines from the sea two towers which projected on the side of Nisaea, and having cleared the entrance to [*]( Göller translates this expression by viam in portum aperuit: but the strict meaning of the μετάξυ must be, I think, that which I have given to it, and which it has IV. 25. 1, ἐν τούτῳ οὖν τῷ μεταξὺ οἱ συρακόσιοι, κ. τ. λ.) the strait between the island [and the continent], he proceeded to cut off all communication on the side of the mainland also, where there was a passage by a bridge over a morass for succouring the island, which lay not far off from the continent.

This having been accomplished by them in a few days, he afterwards left works on the island also, with a garrison, and retired with his forces.

It was also about the same period of this summer that the Plataeans, having no longer any provisions and being unable to endure the blockade, surrendered to the Peloponnesians in the following manner.

The enemy assaulted their wall and they were incapable of defending it. So when the Lacedaemonian commander was aware of their powerless condition, lie did not wish to take it by storm, (for such were his instructions from Lacedaemon, in order that if a treaty should ever be made with the Athenians, and they should agree to restore such places as they had respectively taken in the war, Plataea might not be given up, on the strength of its inhabitants having voluntarily gone over to them,) but he sent to them a herald with this question,

Were they disposed voluntarily to surrender their city to the Lacedaemonians, and submit to them as their judges;