Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/303

 4-7] BLOCKADE OF MYTILENk 187 The other envoys who had been sent to Athens met 5 with no success. When they returned, _, . -' '//?(? envoys return the Mytilenaeans and the rest of Lesbos, f,om Athens mthoui with the exception of Methymna, com- sttccess. A battle en- menced hostihties ; the Methymnaeans, Z' '" "'^"^' ^,' . •' ' Mytilenaeans have the With the Imbrians, Lemnians, and a few advantage; but theyre- of the alhes, had come to the support '"«'« wadive, awaiting of the Athenians. The Mytilenaeans ""'^"" ^^/"«^^"^- with their whole force salHed out against the Athenian camp, and a battle took place, in which they got the better ; but they had no confidence in themselves, and, instead of encamping on the field, retired. They then remained quiet, being unwilling to risk an engagement without the additional help which they were expecting from Pelopon- nesus and elsewhere. For Meleas a Lacedaemonian, and Hermaeondas a Theban, had now arrived at Mytilene ; they had been sent before the revolt, but the Athenian fleet anticipated them, and they sailed in by stealth after the battle in a single trireme. The envoys recommended the Mytilenaeans to send an embassy of their own in another trireme to accompany them on their return to Sparta ; which they accordingly did. The Athenians, greatly encouraged by the inactivity of 6 their adversaries, summoned their The Athenians block- allies, who came all the more readily ade Mytilene by sea. because they saw that the Lesbians displayed no energy. They then anchored the fleet round the south of the city, and having fortified two camps, one on either side of it, they established a blockade of both the harbours. Thus they excluded the Mytilenaeans from the sea. They like- wise held the country in the immediate neighbourhood of their two camps; but the Mytilenaeans and the other Lesbians, who had now taken up arms, were masters of the rest of the island. At Malea the Athenians had, not a camp, but a station for their ships and for their market. Such was the course of the war in Lesbos. In the same 7 summer, and about the same time, the Athenians sent