Summer [III 1–18]

The following summer, just when the corn was ripening, the Peloponnesians and their allies invaded Attica under the command of Archidamus, son of Zeuxidamus and king of the Spartans. They established a base there and started wasting the land. As usual, the Athenian cavalry launched assaults against them whenever the opportunity arose and so prevented the main body of their light-armed troops from leaving the safety of their camp and causing damage in the areas near the city. The Spartans remained there as long as their provisions lasted, then withdrew and dispersed to their various cities.

Immediately after the Peloponnesian invasion all Lesbos, except Methymna, revolted from Athens. They had been wanting to do that before the war began, but the Spartans were not then willing to receive them as allies. Now, however, they were forced to stage their revolt before they intended. They were still waiting to complete the blockage of the harbour, the construction of the walls and the building of ships, as well as for the arrival of everything they needed from the Black Sea – archers, grain and the other things they had requisitioned. Meanwhile, the Tenedians (who were on bad terms with the Lesbians), the Methymnians and some of the Mytilenaeans themselves, who as representatives of the Athenians had their personal reasons for opposition, were collaborating as informers. They told the Athenians that the Mytilenaeans were forcibly centralising the political control of Lesbos in Mytilene; that they had revolt in mind and were pressing ahead with all their preparations in concert with the Spartans and the Boeotians, their own kinsmen; and that if no one acted now to stop them the Athenians would lose Lesbos.