This revolt, indeed, did not come even upon the Athenians wholly unawares; but the idea of it was of longer standing than they suspected, for the Mitylenæan oligarchy had projected it before the war, and had made secret application to Sparta for aid, but without success. Some time after hostilities broke out, they resumed the design, which was warmly promoted by the Bœotians, kinsmen of the Lesbians in Æolic lineage and dialect. The Mitylenæan leaders appear to have finally determined on revolt during the preceding autumn or winter; but they thought it prudent to make ample preparations before they declared themselves openly: and, moreover, they took measures for constraining three other towns in Lesbos—Antissa, Eresus, and Pyrrha—to share their fortunes, to merge their own separate governments, and to become incorporated with Mitylênê. Methymna, the second town in Lesbos, situated on the north of the island, was decidedly opposed to them and attached to Athens. The Mitylenæans built new ships, put their walls in an improved state of defence, carried out a mole in order to narrow the entrance of their harbor, and render it capable of being closed with a chain, despatched emissaries to hire Scythian bowmen and purchase corn in the Euxine, and took such other measures as were necessary for an effective resistance. Though the oligarchical character of their government gave them much means of secrecy, and above all, dispensed with the necessity of consulting the people beforehand,—still, measures of such importance could not be taken without provoking attention. Intimation was sent to the Athenians by various Mitylenæan citizens, partly from private feeling, partly in their capacity of proxeni (or consuls, to use a modern word which approaches to the meaning) for Athens,—especially by a Mitylenæan named Doxander, incensed with the government for having disappointed his two sons of a marriage with two orphan heiresses.[371] Not less communicative were the islanders of Tenedos, animated by ancient neighborly jealousy towards Mitylênê; so that the Athenians were thus forewarned both of the intrigues between Mitylênê and the Spartans and of her certain impending revolt unless they immediately interfered.[372]
This news seems to have become certain about February or March 428 B.C.: but such was then the dispirited condition of the Athenians,—arising from two years’ suffering under the epidemic, and no longer counteracted by the wholesome remonstrances of Periklês,—that they could not at first bring themselves to believe what they were so much afraid to find true. Lesbos, like Chios, was their ally, upon an equal footing, still remaining under those conditions which had been at first common to all the members of the confederacy of Delos. Mitylênê paid no tribute to Athens: it retained its walls, its large naval force, and its extensive landed possessions on the opposite Asiatic continent: its government was oligarchical, administering all internal affairs without the least reference to Athens. Its obligations as an ally were, that, in case of war, it was held bound to furnish armed ships, whether in determinate number or not, we do not know: it would undoubtedly be restrained from making war upon Tenedos, or any other subject-ally of Athens: and its government or its citizens would probably be held liable to answer before the Athenian dikasteries, in case of any complaint of injury from the government or citizens of Tenedos or of any other ally of Athens,—these latter being themselves also accountable before the same tribunals, under like complaints from Mitylênê. That city was thus in practice all but independent, and so extremely powerful that the Athenians in their actual state of depression were fearful of coping with it, and therefore loth to believe the alarming intelligence which reached them. They sent envoys with a friendly message to persuade the Mitylenæans to suspend their proceedings, and it was only when these envoys returned without success that they saw the necessity of stronger measures. Ten Mitylenæan triremes, serving as contingent in the Athenian fleet, were seized, and their crews placed under guard; while Kleïppidês, then on the point of starting, along with two colleagues, to conduct a fleet of forty triremes round Peloponnesus, was directed to alter his destination and to proceed forthwith to Mitylênê.[373] It was expected that he would reach that town about the time of the approaching festival of Apollo Maloeis, celebrated in its neighborhood,—on which occasion the whole Mitylenæan population was in the habit of going forth to the temple: so that the town, while thus deserted, might easily be surprised and seized by the fleet. In case this calculation should be disappointed, Kleïppidês was instructed to require that the Mitylenæans should surrender their ships of war and raze their fortifications, and, in case of refusal, to attack them immediately.
But the publicity of debate at Athens was far too great to allow such a scheme to succeed. The Mitylenæans had their spies in the city, and the moment the resolution was taken, one of them set off to communicate it at Mitylênê. Crossing over to Geræstus in Eubœa, he got aboard a merchantman on the point of departure, and reached Mitylênê with a favorable wind on the third day from Athens: so that when Kleïppidês arrived shortly afterwards, he found the festival adjourned and the government prepared for him. The requisition which he sent in was refused, and the Mitylenæan fleet even came forth from the harbor to assail him, but was beaten back with little difficulty: upon which, the Mitylenæan leaders, finding themselves attacked before their preparations were completed, and desiring still to gain time before they declared their revolt, opened negotiations with Kleïppidês, and prevailed on him to suspend hostilities until ambassadors could be sent to Athens,—protesting that they had no serious intention of revolting. This appears to have been about the middle of May, soon after the Lacedæmonian invasion of Attica. Kleïppidês was induced, not very prudently, to admit this proposition, under the impression that his armament was insufficient to cope with a city and island so powerful; and he remained moored off the harbor at the north of Mitylênê until the envoys, among whom was included one of the very citizens of Mitylênê who had sent to betray the intended revolt, but who had since changed his opinion, should return from Athens. Meanwhile the Mitylenæan government, unknown to Kleïppidês, and well aware that the embassy would prove fruitless, took advantage of the truce to send secret envoys to Sparta, imploring immediate aid: and on the arrival of the Lacedæmonian Meleas and the Theban Hermæondas, who had been despatched to Mitylênê earlier, but had only come in by stealth since the arrival of Kleïppidês, a second trireme was sent along with them, carrying additional envoys to reiterate the solicitation. These arrivals and despatches were carried on without the knowledge of the Athenian admiral, chiefly in consequence of the peculiar site of the town, which had originally been placed upon a little islet divided from Lesbos by a narrow channel, or euripus, and had subsequently been extended across into the main island,—like Syracuse, and so many other Grecian settlements. It had consequently two harbors, one north, the other south of the town: Kleïppidês was anchored off the former, but the latter remained unguarded.[374]
During the absence of the Mitylenæan envoys at Athens, reinforcements reached the Athenian admiral from Lemnos, Imbros, and some other allies, as well as from the Lesbian town of Methymna: so that when the envoys returned, as they presently did, with an unfavorable reply, war was resumed with increased vigor. The Mitylenæans, having made a general sally with their full military force, gained some advantage in the battle; yet, not feeling bold enough to maintain the field, they retreated back behind their walls. The news of their revolt, when first spread abroad, had created an impression unfavorable to the stability of the Athenian empire: but when it was seen that their conduct was irresolute, and their achievements disproportionate to their supposed power, a reaction of feeling took place,—and the Chians and other allies came in with increased zeal in obedience to the summons of Athens for reinforcements. Kleïppidês soon found his armament large enough to establish two separate camps, markets for provision, and naval stations, north and south of the town, so as to watch and block up both the harbors at once.[375] But he commanded little beyond the area of his camp, and was unable to invest the city by land; especially as the Mitylenæans had received reinforcements from Antissa, Pyrrha, and Eresus, the other towns of Lesbos which acted with them. They were even sufficiently strong to march against Methymna, in hopes that it would be betrayed to them by a party within; but this expectation was not realized, nor could they do more than strengthen the fortifications, and confirm the Mitylenæan supremacy, in the other three subordinate towns; in such manner that the Methymnæans, who soon afterwards attacked Antissa, were repulsed with considerable loss. In this undecided condition the island continued, until, somewhere about the month of August B.C. 428, the Athenians sent Pachês to take the command, with a reinforcement of one thousand hoplites, who rowed themselves thither in triremes. The Athenians were now in force enough not only to keep the Mitylenæans within their walls, but also to surround the city with a single wall of circumvallation, strengthened by separate forts in suitable positions. By the beginning of October, Mitylênê was thus completely blockaded, by land as well as by sea.[376]
Meanwhile, the Mitylenæan envoys, after a troublesome voyage, reached Sparta a little before the Olympic festival, about the middle of June. The Spartans directed them to come to Olympia at the festival, where all the members of the Peloponnesian confederacy would naturally be present,—and there to set forth their requests, after the festival was concluded, in presence of all.[377] Thucydidês has given us, at some length, his version of the speech wherein this was done,—a speech not a little remarkable. Pronounced as it was by men who had just revolted from Athens, having the strongest interest to raise indignation against her as well as sympathy for themselves,—and before an audience exclusively composed of the enemies of Athens, all willing to hear, and none present to refute, the bitterest calumnies against her, we should have expected a confident sense of righteous and well-grounded though perilous effort on the part of the Mitylenæans, and a plausible collection of wrongs and oppressions alleged against the common enemy. Instead of which, the speech is apologetic and embarrassed: the speaker not only does not allege any extortion or severe dealing from Athens towards the Mitylenæans, but even admits the fact that they had been treated by her with marked honor;[378] and that, too, during a long period of peace, during which she stood less in awe of her allies generally, and would have had much more facility in realizing any harsh purposes towards them, than she could possibly enjoy now that the war had broken out, when their discontents would be likely to find powerful protectors.[379] According to his own showing, the Mitylenæans, while they had been perfectly well treated by Athens during the past, had now acquired, by the mere fact of war, increased security for continuance of the like treatment during the future. It is upon this ground of security for the future, nevertheless, that he rests the justification of the revolt, not pretending to have any subject of positive complaint. The Mitylenæans, he contends, could have no prospective security against Athens: for she had successively and systematically brought into slavery all her allies, except Lesbos and Chios, though all had originally been upon an equal footing: and there was every reason for fearing that she would take the first convenient opportunity of reducing the two last remaining to the same level,—the rather as their position was now one of privilege and exception, offensive to her imperial pride and exaggerated ascendency. It had hitherto suited the policy of Athens to leave these two exceptions, as a proof that the other allies had justly incurred their fate, since otherwise Lesbos and Chios, having equal votes, would not have joined forces in reducing them:[380] but this policy was now no longer necessary, and the Mitylenæans, feeling themselves free only in name, were imperatively called upon by regard for their own safety to seize the earliest opportunity for emancipating themselves in reality. Nor was it merely regard for their own safety, but a farther impulse of Pan-Hellenic patriotism; a desire to take rank among the opponents, and not among the auxiliaries of Athens, in her usurpation of sovereignty over so many free Grecian states.[381] The Mitylenæans had, however, been compelled to revolt with preparations only half-completed, and had therefore a double claim upon the succor of Sparta,—the single hope and protectress of Grecian autonomy. And Spartan aid—if now lent immediately and heartily, in a renewed attack on Attica during this same year, by sea as well as by land—could not fail to put down the common enemy, exhausted as she was by pestilence as well as by the cost of three years’ war, and occupying her whole maritime force, either in the siege of Mitylênê or round Peloponnesus. The orator concluded by appealing not merely to the Hellenic patriotism and sympathies of the Peloponnesians, but also to the sacred name of the Olympic Zeus, in whose precinct the meeting was held, that his pressing entreaty might not be disregarded.[382]
In following this speech of the orator, we see the plain confession that the Mitylenæans had no reason whatever to complain of the conduct of Athens towards themselves: she had respected alike their dignity, their public force, and their private security. This important fact helps us to explain, first, the indifference which the Mitylenæan people will be found to manifest in the revolt; next, the barbarous resolution taken by the Athenians after its suppression. The reasons given for the revolt are mainly two. 1. The Mitylenæans had no security that Athens would not degrade them into the condition of subject-allies like the rest. 2. They did not choose to second the ambition of Athens, and to become parties to a war, for the sake of maintaining an empire essentially offensive to Grecian political instincts. In both these two reasons there is force; and both touch the sore point of the Athenian empire. That empire undoubtedly contradicted one of the fundamental instincts of the Greek mind,—the right of every separate town to administer its own political affairs apart from external control. The Peloponnesian alliance recognized this autonomy in theory, by the general synod and equal voting of all the members at Sparta, on important occasions; though it was quite true,[383] as Periklês urged at Athens, that in practice nothing more was enjoyed than an autonomy confined by Spartan leading-strings,—and though Sparta held in permanent custody hostages for the fidelity of her Arcadian allies, summoning their military contingents without acquainting them whither they were destined to march. But Athens proclaimed herself a despot, effacing the autonomy of her allies not less in theory than in practice: far from being disposed to cultivate in them any sense of a real common interest with herself, she did not even cheat them with those forms and fictions which so often appease discontent in the absence of realities. Doubtless, the nature of her empire, at once widely extended, maritime, and unconnected, or only partially connected, with kindred of race, rendered the forms of periodical deliberation difficult to keep up; at the same time that it gave to her as naval chief an ascendency much more despotic than could have been exercised by any chief on land. It is doubtful whether she could have overcome—it is certain that she did not try to overcome—these political difficulties; so that her empire stood confessed as a despotism, opposed to the political instinct of the Greek mind; and the revolts against it, like this of Mitylênê,—in so far as they represented a genuine feeling, and were not merely movements of an oligarchical party against their own democracy,—were revolts of this offended instinct, much more than consequences of actual oppression. The Mitylenæans might certainly affirm that they had no security against being one day reduced to the common condition of subject-allies like the rest; yet an Athenian speaker, had he been here present, might have made no mean reply to this portion of their reasoning;—he would have urged that, had Athens felt any dispositions towards such a scheme, she would have taken advantage of the fourteen years’ truce to execute it; and he would have shown that the degradation of the allies by Athens, and the change in her position from president to despot had been far less intentional and systematic than the Mitylenæan orator affirmed.
To the Peloponnesian auditors, however, the speech of the latter proved completely satisfactory; the Lesbians were declared members of the Peloponnesian alliance, and a second attack upon Attica was decreed. The Lacedæmonians, foremost in the movement, summoned contingents from their various allies, and were early in arriving with their own at the isthmus: they there began to prepare carriages or trucks for dragging across the isthmus the triremes which had fought against Phormio, from the harbor of Lechæum into the Saronic gulf, in order to employ them against Athens. But the remaining allies did not answer to the summons, remaining at home occupied with their harvest; and the Lacedæmonians, sufficiently disappointed with this languor and disobedience, were still farther confounded by the unexpected presence of one hundred Athenian triremes off the coast of the isthmus. The Athenians, though their own presence at the Olympic festival was forbidden by the war, had doubtless learned more or less thoroughly the proceedings which had taken place there respecting Mitylênê. Perceiving the general belief entertained of their depressed and helpless condition, they determined to contradict this by a great and instant effort, and accordingly manned forthwith one hundred triremes, requiring the personal service of all men, citizens as well as metics; and excepting only the two richest classes of the Solonian census, i. e. the pentakosiomedimni, and the hippeis, or horsemen. With this prodigious fleet they made a demonstration along the isthmus in view of the Lacedæmonians, and landed in various parts of the Peloponnesian coast to inflict damage. At the same time, thirty other Athenian triremes, despatched sometime previously to Akarnania, under Asôpius, son of Phormio, landed at different openings in Laconia, for the same purpose; and this news reached the Lacedæmonians at the isthmus while the other great Athenian fleet was parading before their eyes.[384] Amazed at so unexpected a demonstration of strength, they began to feel how much the Mitylenæans had misled them respecting the exhaustion of Athens, and how incompetent they were, especially without the presence of their allies, to undertake any joint effective movement by sea and land against Attica. They therefore returned home, resolving to send an expedition of forty triremes, under Alkidas, to the relief of Mitylênê itself; at the same time transmitting requisitions to their various allies, in order that these triremes might be furnished.[385]
Meanwhile, Asôpius, with his thirty triremes, had arrived in Akarnania, from whence all the ships except twelve were sent home. He had been nominated commander as the son of Phormio, who appears either to have died, or to have become unfit for service, since his victories of the preceding year; and the Akarnanians had preferred a special request that a son, or at least some relative of Phormio, should be invested with the command of the squadron; so beloved was his name and character among them. Asôpius, however, accomplished nothing of importance, though he again undertook conjointly with the Akarnanians a fruitless march against Œniadæ. Ultimately, he was defeated and slain, in attempting a disembarkation on the territory of Leukas.[386]
The sanguine announcement made by the Mitylenæans at Olympia, that Athens was rendered helpless by the epidemic, had indeed been strikingly contradicted by her recent display; since, taking numbers and equipment together, the maritime force which she had put forth this summer, manned as it was by a higher class of seamen, surpassed all former years; although, in point of number only, it was inferior to the two hundred and fifty triremes which she had sent out during the first summer of the war.[387] But the assertion that Athens was impoverished in finances was not so destitute of foundation: for the whole treasure in the acropolis, six thousand talents at the commencement of the war, was now consumed, with the exception of that reserve of one thousand talents which had been solemnly set aside against the last exigences of defensive resistance. This is not surprising, when we learn that every hoplite engaged for near two years and a half in the blockade of Potidæa, received two drachmas per day, one for himself and a second for an attendant: there were during the whole time of the blockade three thousand hoplites engaged there,—and for a considerable portion of the time, four thousand six hundred; besides the fleet, all the seamen of which received one drachma per day per man. Accordingly the Athenians were now for the first time obliged to raise a direct contribution among themselves, to the amount of two hundred talents, for the purpose of prosecuting the siege of Mitylênê: and they at the same time despatched Lysiklês with four colleagues, in command of twelve triremes, to collect money. What relation these money-gathering ships bore to the regular tribute paid by the subject-allies, or whether they were allowed to visit these latter, we do not know: in the present case, Lysiklês landed at Myus, near the mouth of the Mæander, and marched up the country to levy contributions on the Karian villages in the plain of that river: but he was surprised by the Karians, perhaps aided by the active Samian exiles at Anæa in the neighborhood, and slain, with a considerable number of his men.[388]
While the Athenians thus held Mitylênê under siege, their faithful friends, the Platæans, had remained closely blockaded by the Peloponnesians and Bœotians for more than a year, without any possibility of relief. At length, provisions began to fail, and the general, Eupompidês, backed by the prophet Theænetus,—these prophets[389] were often among the bravest soldiers in the army,—persuaded the garrison to adopt the daring but seemingly desperate resolution of breaking out over the blockading wall, and in spite of its guards. So desperate, indeed, did the project seem, that at the moment of execution, one half of the garrison shrank from it as equivalent to certain death: the other half, about two hundred and twelve in number, persisted and escaped. Happy would it have been for the remainder had they even perished in the attempt, and thus forestalled the more melancholy fate in store for them!