History of the Peloponnesian War

At the beginning of the following spring[*](425 B.C.) the stream of fire burst from Aetna, as it had on

former occasions. And it devastated a portion of the territory of the Catanaeans who dwell on the slope of Mount Aetna, the highest mountain in Sicily. This eruption took place, it is said, fifty years after the last preceding one;[*](The eruption of Aetna mentioned in the Parian Marble, lii. 67 f., as contemporaneous with the battle of Plataea (479 B.C.); so that the expression “fiftieth year” is not quiet exact. From his form of expression in what follows, it is clear that Thucydides, when he wrote this passage, could have had no knowledge of an eruption later than 425 B.C. He must therefore have died before that of 396 B.C. or, if he lived after that date, never revised this passage.) and three eruptions all told are reported to have occurred since Sicily has been inhabited by

the Hellenes.[*](ie. , since the eighth century; see the account at the beginning of Book vi.) Such was the course of events in this winter, and therewith ended the sixth year of this war of which Thucydides composed the history.