Salæthus and the Mitylenæans had held out until their provisions were completely exhausted, but neither relief, nor tidings, reached them from Peloponnesus. At length, even Salæthus became convinced that no relief would come; he projected, therefore, as a last hope, a desperate attack upon the Athenians and their wall of blockade. For this purpose, he distributed full panoplies among the mass of the people, or commons, who had hitherto been without them, having at best nothing more than bows or javelins.[394] But he had not sufficiently calculated the consequences of this important step. The Mitylenæan multitude, living under an oligarchical government, had no interest whatever in the present contest, which had been undertaken without any appeal to their opinion. They had no reason for aversion to Athens, seeing that they suffered no practical grievance from the Athenian alliance: and we shall find hereafter that even among the subject-allies—to say nothing of a privileged ally like Mitylênê—the bulk of the citizens were never forward, sometimes positively reluctant, to revolt. The Mitylenæan oligarchy had revolted, in spite of the absence of practical wrongs, because they desired an uncontrolled town-autonomy as well as security for its continuance: but this was a feeling to which the people were naturally strangers, having no share in the government of their own town, and being kept dead and passive, as it was the interest of the oligarchy that they should be, in respect to political sentiment. A Grecian oligarchy might obtain from its people quiet submission under ordinary circumstances, but if ever it required energetic effort, the genuine devotion under which alone such effort could be given, was found wanting. Accordingly, the Mitylenæan demos, so soon as they found themselves strengthened and ennobled by the possession of heavy armor, refused obedience to the orders of Salæthus for marching out and imperiling their lives in a desperate struggle. They were under the belief—not unnatural under the secrecy of public affairs habitually practised by an oligarchy, but which, assuredly, the Athenian demos would have been too well informed to entertain—that their governors were starving them, and had concealed stores of provisions for themselves. Accordingly, the first use which they made of their arms was, to demand that these concealed stores should be brought out and fairly apportioned to all, threatening, unless their demand was complied with at once, to enter into negotiations with the Athenians, and surrender the city. The ruling Mitylenæans, unable to prevent this, but foreseeing that it would be their irretrievable ruin, preferred the chance of negotiating themselves for a capitulation. It was agreed with Pachês, that the Athenian armament should enter into possession of Mitylênê; that the fate of its people and city should be left to the Athenian assembly, and that the Mitylenæans should send envoys to Athens to plead their