History of the Peloponnesian War

​When the news of what had happened in Euboea reached the Athenians, a panic fell upon them greater than any before. For neither the disaster in Sicily, though it seemed great at the time, nor any other event had ever yet terrified them so much.

​For when their army in Samos had revolted, and they had no other ships nor men to man them, while they themselves were in a state of sedition and it was uncertain when they would clash with one another, and on top of all this so great a disaster had fallen upon them, in which they had lost both their ships and, most important of all, Euboea, from which they derived more benefit than from Attica, how could they not reasonably be despondent?

​But what alarmed them most of all and most immediately was the fear lest the enemy, having conquered, should dare to sail straight against Piraeus, which was destitute of ships; and they believed they were already all but there.

​Which indeed, had the enemy been more daring, they could easily have done; and they would either have divided the city still more by lying off it, or, if they had stayed and besieged it, they would have forced even the ships from Ionia, although hostile to the oligarchy, to come to the aid of their own relatives and the entire city; and in this way the Hellespont, Ionia, the islands, the places as far as Euboea, and, so to speak, the whole Athenian empire would have been theirs.

​But it was not on this occasion alone that the Lacedaemonians showed themselves to be the most convenient enemies of all for the Athenians to fight, but in many other instances as well. For being entirely different in character—the ones active, the others slow; the ones enterprising, the others timid—they were of the greatest advantage to them, especially in a naval empire. This was demonstrated by the Syracusans, who, being most similar to them in character, also fought them most successfully.