History of the Peloponnesian War

The following winter, when the Lacedaemonians became aware that they were fortifying Argos, they made an expedition thither, themselves and their allies, except the Corinthians; and there was also a party in Argos itself that was working in their interest. The commander of the army was Agis son of Archidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians.

The support from the city which they expected to find ready failed them, but they seized and demolished the walls that were being built; and they also seized Hysiae, a place in Argive territory, slew all the free men whom they caught, and then withdrew and dispersed to their several cities.

After this the Argives in their turn invaded Phliasia and ravaged it before they returned home, because the Phliasians had received fugitives of theirs, most of whom had settled there.

Also during the same winter the Athenians shut off the Macedonians from the sea, charging Perdiccas with the league which he had made with the Argives and the Lacedaemonians; also that when they had prepared to lead an army against the Chalcidians in Thrace and against Amphipolis, under the command of Nicias son of Niceratus, he had been false to the alliance, and the expedition had been broken up chiefly because of his defection. Accordingly, he was regarded as an enemy. So this winter ended and with it the fifteenth year of the war.

The next summer Alcibiades sailed to[*](March, 416 B.C.) Argos with twenty ships and seized such Argives as seemed to be still open to suspicion and to favour the side of the Lacedaemonians, to the number of three hundred men; and these the Athenians deposited in the adjacent islands over which they had sway. The Athenians also made an expedition against the island of Melos[*](cf. 3.91.1; 3.94.2.) with thirty ships of their own, six Chian and two Lesbian, and twelve hundred Athenian hoplites, three hundred bowmen, and twenty mounted archers, and from their allies and the islanders about

fifteen hundred hoplites. Now the Melians are colonists of the Lacedaemonians, and were unwilling to obey the Athenians like the rest of the islanders. At first they remained quiet as neutrals; then when the Athenians tried to force them by ravaging their land, they went

to war openly. Accordingly, having encamped in their territory with the forces just mentioned, the Athenian commanders, Cleomedes son of Lycomedes and Teisias son of Teisimachus, before doing any harm to the land, sent envoys to make proposals to the Melians. These envoys the Melians did not bring before the popular assembly, but bade them tell in the presence of the magistrates and the few[*](Probably the chief governing body, a chamber of oligarchs, to which the magistrates (αἱ ἀρχαί) belonged.) what they had come for. The Athenian envoys accordingly spoke as follows:

“Since our proposals are not to be made before the assembly, your purpose being, as it seems, that the people may not hear from us once for all, in an uninterrupted speech, arguments that are seductive and untested,[*](ie. not questioned or put to the proof.) and so be deceived—for we see that it is with this thought that you bring us before the few—do you who sit here adopt a still safer course. Take up each point, and do not you either make a single speech, but conduct the inquiry by replying at once to any statement of ours that seems to be unsatisfactory. And first state whether our proposal suits you.”