History of the Peloponnesian War

In the same summer Hagnon son of Nicias and Cleopompus son of Clinias, colleagues of Pericles, taking the armament which he had employed,[*](On the expedition against the Peloponnesian coasts, cf. Thuc. 2.56.) at once set out on an expedition against the Chalcidians in Thrace and against Potidaea, which was still under siege,[*](Thuc. 1.64.) and on their arrival they brought siege-engines to bear upon Potidaea, and tried in every way to take it.

But no success commensurate with the appointments of the expedition attended their efforts, either in their attempt to capture the city or otherwise; for the plague broke out and sorely distressed the Athenians there, playing such havoc in the army that even the Athenian soldiers of the first expedition,[*](The 3,000 soldiers of the first expedition; cf. Thuc. 2.31.2 and Thuc. 1.61.4.) who had hitherto been in good health, caught the infection from Hagnon's troops. Phormio, however, and his sixteen hundred men, were no longer in Chalcidice.

Accordingly Hagnon took his fleet back to Athens, having lost by the plague in about forty days one thousand and fifty out of a total of four thousand hoplites; but the soldiers of the former expedition remained where they were and continued the siege of Potidaea.