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] [377] Thucyd. iii, 9. [378] Thucyd. iii, 10. μηδέ τῳ χείρους δόξωμεν εἶναι, εἰ ~ἐν τῇ εἰρήνῃ τιμώμενοι ὑπ᾽ αὐτῶν~ ἐν τοῖς δεινοῖς ἀφιστάμεθα. The language in which the Mitylenæan envoys describe the treatment which their city had received from Athens, is substantially as strong as that which Kleon uses afterwards in his speech at Athens, when he reproaches them with their ingratitude,—Kleon says (iii, 39), αὐτόνομοί τε οἰκοῦντες, καὶ ~τιμώμενοι ἐς τὰ πρῶτα ὑφ᾽ ἡμῶν~, τοιαῦτα εἰργάσαντο, etc. [379] Thucyd. iii, 12. οὐ μέντοι ἐπὶ πολύ γ᾽ ἂν ἐδοκοῦμεν δυνηθῆναι (περιγίγνεσθαι), εἰ μὴ ὁ πόλεμος ὅδε κατέστη, παραδείγμασι χρώμενοι τοῖς ἐς τοὺς ἄλλους. Τίς οὖν αὐτὴ ἡ φιλία ἐγίγνετο ἢ ἐλευθερία πιστὴ, ἐν ᾗ παρὰ γνώμην ἀλλήλους ὑπεδεχόμεθα, καὶ οἱ μὲν ἡμᾶς ἐν τῷ πολέμῳ δεδιότες ἐθεράπευον, ἡμεῖς δὲ ἐκείνους ἐν τῇ ἡσυχίᾳ τὸ αὐτὸ ἐποιοῦμεν. [380] Thucyd. iii, 11. Αὐτόνομοι δὲ ἐλείφθημεν οὐ δι᾽ ἄλλο τι ἢ ὅσον αὐτοῖς ἐς τὴν ἀρχὴν εὐπρεπείᾳ τε λόγου, καὶ γνώμης μᾶλλον ἐφόδῳ ἢ ἰσχύος, τὰ πράγματα ἐφαίνετο καταληπτά. Ἅμα μὲν γὰρ μαρτυρίῳ ἐχρῶντο, μὴ ἂν ~τούς γε ἰσοψήφους ἄκοντας~, εἰ μή τι ἠδίκουν οἷς ἐπῄεσαν, ~ξυστρατεύειν~. [381] Thucyd. iii, 13. [382] Thucyd. iii, 13, 14.