History of the Peloponnesian War

Meanwhile the Samians suddenly made a sally and fell upon the Athenian naval station, which was unprotected by a stockade, destroying the guardships and defeating in a sea-fight the ships that put out against them. And for about fourteen days they were masters of the sea off their coast, bringing in and carrying out whatever they wished;

but when Pericles came they were again blockaded by sea. And afterwards a reinforcement came from Athens of forty ships under the command of Thucydides,[*](Possibly the historian, as some have thought; others explain as the son of Melesias and opponent of Pericles; still others as the poet from the deme of Acherdus.) Hagnon and Phormio, twenty under Tlepolemus and Anticles, and thirty from Chios and Lesbos.

Now the Samians did indeed put up a sea-fight for a short time, but they were unable to hold out, and in the ninth month[*](439 B.C.) were reduced by siege and agreed to a capitulation, pulling down their walls, giving hostages, delivering over their ships, and consenting to pay back by instalments the money spent upon the siege. The Byzantines too came to terms, agreeing to be subjects as before.

It was not many years[*](Hardly four years, since the naval battle between the Corcyraeans and Corinthians seems to have occurred 435 B.C.) after this that the events already narrated occurred, namely the Corcyraean affair,[*](1.24-1.40.) the Potidaean,[*](1.54-1.66.) and all the other incidents[*](The transactions in the Spartan assembly, 1.67-1.88. lxxxviii.) that furnished an occasion for this war.

And all these operations of the Hellenes, against one another and against the Barbarian, took place in the interval of about fifty years between the retreat of Xerxes and the beginning of this war.[*](479-432 B.C.)It was in this period that the Athenians established their rule more firmly and themselves advanced to great power. And the Lacedaemonians, though aware of their growing power, made no attempt to check it, except to a trifling extent, remaining indifferent the greater part of the time, since they had never been quick to go to war except under compulsion, and in this case were in some degree precluded from interference by wars of their own.[*](The Helot rebellion, 1.101.)But at last the power of the Athenians began clearly to exalt itself and they were laying hands upon their allies. Then the Lacedaemonians could bear it no longer, but determined that they must attack the Athenian power with all zeal and overthrow it, if they could, by undertaking this war. The Lacedaemonians themselves, then,[*](Resuming the narrative interrupted at the end of Thuc. 1.88.) had decided that the treaty had been broken and that the Athenians were in the wrong, and sending to Delphi they asked the god if it would be advisable for them to go to war.