Summer [V 84–115]

The next summer Alcibiades sailed to Argos with twenty ships and arrested those Argives who still seemed to be suspect figures and sympathisers of the Spartans. There were 300 of them in all and the Athenians deposited them on nearby islands that they controlled.

The Athenians also mounted an expedition against the island of Melos, with a force consisting of thirty ships of their own, six from Chios and two from Lesbos, together with 1,200 Athenian hoplites, 300 archers, 20 mounted archers and about 1,500 hoplites from their allies and the islanders. The Melians are Spartan colonists and were unwilling to recognise Athenian authority as the other islanders did. At first they stayed neutral and took no active part, but when the Athenians tried to force them by wasting their land they openly put themselves on a war footing. The Athenians therefore encamped in their territory with the forces mentioned above, but before doing any damage to the land the Athenian generals, Cleomedes son of Lycomedes and Teisias son of Teisimachus, sent envoys first to make proposals to the Melians. The Melians did not bring this delegation before the people in assembly but told them to explain the business they had come on to the authorities and the smaller ruling group. So the Athenian envoys addressed them as follows.