Book 3
2.3
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 proxeniThe 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.
3.1
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.
3.2
So they suddenly despatched forty ships, which happened to be ready for a cruise around the Peloponnesus, under the command of Cleïppides son of Deinias and two others;
