History of The Peloponnesian War - Book III   

by their fleet, which they thought must now have got over. However, as
they did not obtain any of the results expected, and their
provisions began to run short, they retreated and dispersed to their
different cities.
In the meantime the Mitylenians, finding their provisions failing,
while the fleet from Peloponnese was loitering on the way instead of
appearing at Mitylene, were compelled to come to terms with the
Athenians in the following manner. Salaethus having himself ceased
to expect the fleet to arrive, now armed the commons with heavy
armour, which they had not before possessed, with the intention of
making a sortie against the Athenians. The commons, however, no sooner
found themselves possessed of arms than they refused any longer to
obey their officers; and forming in knots together, told the
authorities to bring out in public the provisions and divide them
amongst them all, or they would themselves come to terms with the
Athenians and deliver up the city.
The government, aware of their inability to prevent this, and of the
danger they would be in, if left out of the capitulation, publicly
agreed with Paches and the army to surrender Mitylene at discretion
and to admit the troops into the town; upon the understanding that the
Mitylenians should be allowed to send an embassy to Athens to plead
their cause, and that Paches should not imprison, make slaves of, or
put to death any of the citizens until its return. Such were the terms
of the capitulation; in spite of which the chief authors of the
negotiation with Lacedaemon were so completely overcome by terror when
the army entered that they went and seated themselves by the altars,
from which they were raised up by Paches under promise that he would
do them no wrong, and lodged by him in Tenedos, until he should
learn the pleasure of the Athenians concerning them. Paches also
sent some galleys and seized Antissa, and took such other military
measures as he thought advisable.
Meanwhile the Peloponnesians in the forty ships, who ought to have
made all haste to relieve Mitylene, lost time in coming round
Peloponnese itself, and proceeding leisurely on the remainder of the
voyage, made Delos without having been seen by the Athenians at
Athens, and from thence arriving at Icarus and Myconus, there first
heard of the fall of Mitylene. Wishing to know the truth, they put
into Embatum, in the Erythraeid, about seven days after the capture of
the town. Here they learned the truth, and began to consider what they
were to do; and Teutiaplus, an Elean, addressed them as follows:
"Alcidas and Peloponnesians who share with me the command of this
armament, my advice is to sail just as we are to Mitylene, before we
have been heard of. We may expect to find the Athenians as much off
their guard as men generally are who have just taken a city: this will
certainly be so by sea, where they have no idea of any enemy attacking
them, and where our strength, as it happens, mainly lies; while even
their land forces are probably scattered about the houses in the
carelessness of victory. If therefore we were to fall upon them
suddenly and in the night, I have hopes, with the help of the
well-wishers that we may have left inside the town, that we shall
become masters of the place. Let us not shrink from the risk, but
let us remember that this is just the occasion for one of the baseless
panics common in war: and that to be able to guard against these in
one's own case, and to detect the moment when an attack will find an
enemy at this disadvantage, is what makes a successful general."
These words of Teutiaplus failing to move Alcidas, some of the
Ionian exiles and the Lesbians with the expedition began to urge
him, since this seemed too dangerous, to seize one of the Ionian
cities or the Aeolic town of Cyme, to use as a base for effecting
the revolt of Ionia. This was by no means a hopeless enterprise, as
their coming was welcome everywhere; their object would be by this
move to deprive Athens of her chief source of revenue, and at the same
time to saddle her with expense, if she chose to blockade them; and
they would probably induce Pissuthnes to join them in the war.