History of the Peloponnesian War

For they were waiting until the work should be finished of blocking their harbours, building walls, and constructing ships, and until the arrival of what they needed from the Pontus—archers and grain, and whatever else they were sending for.

But the people of Tenedos, who were at variance with them, and of Methymna, and some of the Mytilenaeans themselves, men in private station who were proxeni[*](The word means literally “public guest,” or “friend.” Under the condition of entertaining and assisting ambassadors and citizen of the state they represented they enjoyed certain privileges from that state, and answered pretty nearly to our Consuls and Residents, though the proxenus was always a member of the state where he served.) of the Athenians, were moved by partisanship to turn informers and notify the Athenians that the Mytilenaeans were attempting to bring all Lesbos into a political union centred in Mytilene; that all their preparations were being hurried forward, in concert with the Lacedaemonians and with their kinsmen the Boeotians, with the purpose of revolting; and that unless someone should forestall them forthwith, Lesbos would be lost to Athens.

But the Athenians, distressed by the plague as well as by the war, which had recently broken out and was now at its height, thought it a serious matter to make a new enemy of Lesbos, which had a fleet and power unimpaired; and so at first they would not listen to the charges, giving greater weight to the wish that they might not be true. When, however, the envoys whom they sent could not persuade the Mytilenaeans to stop their measures for political union and their preparations, they became alarmed and wished to forestall them.