sentences:  to seek assistance from the Peloponnesians.The Mytilenians asked for direct help in Mytilene, but also for an invasion of Attica, pointing out that since Athens had recently been devastated by a plague it would have financial difficulties fighting on two fronts.Thucydides represents the Mytilenian ambassadors at Olympia as arguing that Athens had taken advantage of the Delian League and used it as a mechanism for "enslaving" and exploiting other Greeks; that it was only a matter of time before they set their sights on Mytilene’s prosperous and autonomous island of Lesbos and forced it into their system of oppression; and that the Mytilenians could not wait for this and should pre-emptively break away before Athens forced her will upon them.