2.
No sooner had the Peloponnesians quitted Attica than the whole people of Lesbos, with
the1 exception of the Methymnaeans, revolted from Athens.
They had entertained the design before the war began, but the Lacedaemonians gave them
no encouragement.
And now they were not ready, and were compelled to revolt sooner than they had
intended.
[2]
For they were waiting until they had completed the work of closing their harbours,
raising walls, and building ships, and they had not as yet received from Pontus the
force of archers, the corn and the other supplies for which they had sent.
[3]
But the inhabitants of Tenedos, who were not on good terms with them, and the
Methymnaeans, and individual citizens who were of the opposite faction and
were proxeni of Athens, turned informers and told the Athenians that the Mytilenaeans
were forcibly making Mytilenè the centre of government for the whole island;
that the preparations which they were pressing forward had been throughout undertaken by
them in concert with the Lacedaemonians and with their Boeotian kinsmen, and meant
revolt; and that if something were not immediately done, Lesbos would be lost to Athens.
1 The Lesbians, with the exception of the Methymnaeans, revolt, but sooner than they had intended, information of their plans having been sent to Athens from Tenedos, Methymna, and Mytilenè itself.
Thucydides translated into English; with introduction, marginal analysis, notes, and indices. Volume 1. Thucydides. Benjamin Jowett. translator. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1881.
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