We have already traced the steps by which the various cities
composing the Confederacy of Delos gradually became subjects and
tributaries of Athens. After this great change was effected, the only
members of the original league who retained their independence were
the wealthy and powerful communities of Chios and Lesbos. These two
islands were allowed to retain undisturbed control of their own
affairs, with the sole obligation of sending a fixed quota of ships to
serve in the Athenian Navy. It does not appear that the performance of
this duty was felt as a grievance, and no act of oppression had been
committed by Athens, such as might have provoked her allies in Lesbos
or Chios to turn against her. In both islands the general body of the
citizens were on the whole friendly to the Athenians, who afforded
them an effectual means of protection against the tyranny of the
nobles, by summoning high-born offenders to be tried before the
Athenian tribunals. [Footnote: The evidence for this statement will be
found in Thucydides, viii. 48.] It was therefore not among the people
at large, but among the privileged few, that any movement of revolt
against Athens was to be expected.

Some years before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War the Lesbian
malcontents had solicited the Spartans to help them in throwing off
the yoke of Athens. This application, which was probably made at the
time of the revolt of Samos, found no favour with Sparta, and nothing
further was attempted on that occasion. But in the fourth year of the
war alarming rumours were brought to Athens from Tenedos, a small
island included in the Athenian alliance, whose inhabitants were
jealous of the threatened ascendancy of Lesbos in the eastern
districts of the Aegaean. There was a design, it was said, among the
leading citizens of Mytilene, the principal city of Lesbos, to unite
the inhabitants of the island by force under their rule, and renounce