History of the Peloponnesian War

And when the Athenians saw that the enemy had withdrawn, they also returned home with their hundred ships.

At the time when these ships were at sea about the largest number the Athenians ever had at once were on active service, though there were as many or even more at the beginning of the war.

For one hundred ships were guarding Attica, Euboea and Salamis, and another hundred were cruising off the Peloponnesus, besides those at Potidaea and in other places, so that the number in service at the same time in a single summer was all told two hundred and fifty. It was this effort, together with Potidaea, that chiefly exhausted their resources of money.

For in the siege of Potidaea the hoplite received a wage of two drachmas a day, one for himself and one for his attendant;

and there were at first three thousand of these, and the number was not less than this throughout the siege, besides sixteen hundred who came with Phormio, but went away before the siege was over; and the sailors on the ships all drew the same pay as the soldiers. It was in this way, then, that their money was exhausted at first, and this was the largest number of ships manned by them.

While the Lacedaemonians were at the Isthmus, the Mytilenaeans and their auxiliaries[*](Foreign mercenaries; cf. 3.2.2.) marched with their army against Methymna, which they supposed was being betrayed into their hands; and they assaulted the city, but when their attempt did not succeed as they had expected, they went off to Antissa, Pyrrha and Eresus, and after establishing their interests in these cities on a firmer basis and strengthening the walls, went home in haste.

As soon, however, as they had withdrawn, the Methymnaeans in their turn made an expedition against Antissa; but a sortie was made by the inhabitants of Antissa and the auxiliary troops in which the Methymnaeans were defeated and many of them slain, whereupon the rest withdrew in haste.