ships, immediately offered to treat with the commanders, wishing, if
possible, to get the ships away for the present upon any tolerable
terms. The Athenian commanders accepted their offers, being themselves
fearful that they might not be able to cope with the whole of
Lesbos; and an armistice having been concluded, the Mitylenians sent
to Athens one of the informers, already repentant of his conduct,
and others with him, to try to persuade the Athenians of the innocence
of their intentions and to get the fleet recalled. In the meantime,
having no great hope of a favourable answer from Athens, they also
sent off a galley with envoys to Lacedaemon, unobserved by the
Athenian fleet which was anchored at Malea to the north of the town.
While these envoys, reaching Lacedaemon after a difficult journey
across the open sea, were negotiating for succours being sent them,
the ambassadors from Athens returned without having effected anything;
and hostilities were at once begun by the Mitylenians and the rest
of Lesbos, with the exception of the Methymnians, who came to the
aid of the Athenians with the Imbrians and Lemnians and some few of
the other allies. The Mitylenians made a sortie with all their
forces against the Athenian camp; and a battle ensued, in which they
gained some slight advantage, but retired notwithstanding, not feeling
sufficient confidence in themselves to spend the night upon the field.
After this they kept quiet, wishing to wait for the chance of
reinforcements arriving from Peloponnese before making a second
venture, being encouraged by the arrival of Meleas, a Laconian, and
Hermaeondas, a Theban, who had been sent off before the insurrection
but had been unable to reach Lesbos before the Athenian expedition,
and who now stole in in a galley after the battle, and advised them to
send another galley and envoys back with them, which the Mitylenians
accordingly did.
Meanwhile the Athenians, greatly encouraged by the inaction of the
Mitylenians, summoned allies to their aid, who came in all the quicker
from seeing so little vigour displayed by the Lesbians, and bringing
round their ships to a new station to the south of the town, fortified
two camps, one on each side of the city, and instituted a blockade
of both the harbours. The sea was thus closed against the Mitylenians,
who, however, commanded the whole country, with the rest of the
Lesbians who had now joined them; the Athenians only holding a limited
area round their camps, and using Malea more as the station for
their ships and their market.
While the war went on in this way at Mitylene, the Athenians,
about the same time in this summer, also sent thirty ships to
Peloponnese under Asopius, son of Phormio; the Acarnanians insisting
that the commander sent should be some son or relative of Phormio.
As the ships coasted along shore they ravaged the seaboard of Laconia;
after which Asopius sent most of the fleet home, and himself went on
with twelve vessels to Naupactus, and afterwards raising the whole
Acarnanian population made an expedition against Oeniadae, the fleet
sailing along the Achelous, while the army laid waste the country. The
inhabitants, however, showing no signs of submitting, he dismissed the
land forces and himself sailed to Leucas, and making a descent upon
Nericus was cut off during his retreat, and most of his troops with
him, by the people in those parts aided by some coastguards; after
which the Athenians sailed away, recovering their dead from the
Leucadians under truce.
Meanwhile the envoys of the Mitylenians sent out in the first ship
were told by the Lacedaemonians to come to Olympia, in order that
the rest of the allies might hear them and decide upon their matter,
and so they journeyed thither. It was the Olympiad in which the
Rhodian Dorieus gained his second victory, and the envoys having
been introduced to make their speech after the festival, spoke as
follows:
"Lacedaemonians and allies, the rule established among the
Hellenes is not unknown to us. Those who revolt in war and forsake
their former confederacy are favourably regarded by those who