History of the Peloponnesian War

​This is how many on each side fought against Syracuse, having come to Sicily or on account of Sicily—some to help acquire the country, others to help preserve it—taking their stand with one side or the other not so much out of justice or kinship, but as the circumstances of each required, either for interest or by necessity.

​The Athenians themselves, being Ionians, voluntarily went against the Syracusans, who were Dorians; and with them campaigned the Lemnians, Imbrians, and Aeginetans (who then held Aegina), as well as the Hestiaeans living in Hestiaea in Euboea, who, as colonists, still shared the same dialect and customs with them.

​Of the rest, some were subjects, others were independent allies, and there were also some who campaigned as mercenaries.

​Among the subjects and tribute-paying allies, there were from Euboea the Eretrians, Chalcidians, Styrians, and Carystians; from the islands, the Ceans, Andrians, and Tenians; and from Ionia, the Milesians, Samians, and Chians. Of these, the Chians followed as independent allies, not paying tribute but providing ships. Almost all of these, except the Carystians (who are Dryopes), were Ionians and descendants of the Athenians; though they were subjects and acted under necessity, they nevertheless, as Ionians, followed against Dorians.

​In addition to these were Aeolians: the Methymnaeans, who were subjects providing ships but not tribute, and the Tenedians and Aenians, who paid tribute. These Aeolians were forced to fight against Aeolians—the Boeotians who had founded them and were now with the Syracusans. The Plataeans, however, being Boeotians, naturally fought against Boeotians, they alone being opposed to them out of hatred.

​The Rhodians and Cytherians were both Dorians. The Cytherians, colonists of the Lacedaemonians, bore arms with the Athenians against the Lacedaemonians who were with Gylippus; while the Rhodians, Argive by descent, were forced to make war on the Syracusans, who were Dorians, and on the Gelaens, who were their own colonists and were campaigning with the Syracusans.

​Of the islanders around the Peloponnese, the Cephallenians and Zacynthians were independent, but because the Athenians ruled the sea, they were constrained rather by their position as islanders to follow them. The Corcyraeans, who were not only Dorians but also clearly Corinthians, followed against the Corinthians and Syracusans—being colonists of the former and kinsmen of the latter—under a plausible show of necessity, but no less by choice out of hatred for the Corinthians.

​Those now called Messenians were brought into the war from Naupactus and from Pylos, which was then held by the Athenians. Furthermore, a few exiles from Megara fought, by a turn of misfortune, against Megarians who were of Selinus.

​For the rest, the expedition was already more of a voluntary nature. The Argives, not so much because of their alliance as because of their hatred for the Lacedaemonians and the immediate private advantage of each, followed the Ionian Athenians against Dorians, though they were Dorians themselves; the Mantineans and other Arcadian mercenaries, accustomed to go against whoever was designated as their enemy, on this occasion too regarded the Arcadians who had come with the Corinthians as enemies no less for the sake of gain; and the Cretans and Aetolians were also induced by pay. It so happened that the Cretans, who had helped the Rhodians found Gela, came, not on the side of their colonists, but against them, voluntarily and for pay.

​Some of the Acarnanians came to help as allies, partly for gain, but even more out of friendship with Demosthenes and goodwill toward the Athenians.

​These, then, were the peoples bounded by the Ionian Gulf. From Italy, the Thurians and Metapontines, caught at that time in the necessities of factional crises, campaigned with them; from Sicily, the Naxians and Catanaeans; of the barbarians, the Egestaeans, who had brought them in, and the greater part of the Sicels; and from outside Sicily, some of the Tyrrhenians out of difference with the Syracusans, and Iapygian mercenaries. So many were the nations that campaigned with the Athenians.