History of the Peloponnesian War

And many were the prophecies recited and many those which oracle-mongers chanted, both among the peoples who were about to go to war and in the Hellenic cities at large.

Moreover, only a short time before this, Delos had been shaken, although it had not before been visited by an earthquake within the memory of the Hellenes.[*](Probably an intentional contradiction of Hdt. 6.98., where it is stated that an earthquake occurred shortly before the battle of Marathon, but none later.)This was said and believed to be ominous of coming events, and indeed every other incident of the sort which chanced to occur was carefully looked into.

The general good-will, however, inclined decidedly to the side of the Lacedaemonians, especially since they proclaimed that they were liberating Hellas. Every person and every state was strongly purposed to assist them in every possible way, whether by word or by deed, and each man thought that wherever he could not himself be present, there the cause had suffered a check.

To such an extent were the majority of the Hellenes enraged against the Athenians, some wishing to be delivered from their sway, others fearful of falling under it.

Such were the preparations and such the feelings with which the Hellenes went into the conflict. And the states which each side had as its allies when it entered the war were as follows.

These were the allies of the Lacedaemonians: all the Peloponnesians south of the Isthmus with the exception of the Argives and Achaeans (these latter had friendly relations with both sides, and the Pellenians were the only Achaeans who at first took part in the war with the Lacedaemonians, though eventually all of them did), and outside of the Peloponnesus the Megarians, Boeotians, Locrians, Phocians, Ambraciots, Leucadians, and Anactorians.

Of these, the Corinthians, Megarians, Sicyonians, Pellenians, Eleans, Ambraciots, and Leucadians furnished ships, while cavalry was contributed by the Boeotians, Phocians, and Locrians, and infantry by the other states.

These were the allies of the Lacedaemonians. Those of the Athenians were: the Chians, Lesbians, Plataeans, the Messenians of Naupactus, most of the Acarnanians, the Corcyraeans, the Zacynthians, and in addition the cities which were tributary in the following countries: the seaboard of Caria, the Dorians adjacent to the Carians, Ionia, the Hellespont, the districts on the coast of Thrace, and the islands which lie between the Peloponnesus and Crete toward the east, with the exception of Melos and Thera.

Of these, the Chians, Lesbians, and Corcyraeans furnished ships, the rest infantry and money.