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.

The next summer, about the time of the earing[*](425 B.C.) of the grain, ten Syracusan and as many Locrian ships sailed to Messene in Sicily and occupied it, going thither on the invitation of the inhabitants; and Messene revolted

from Athens. The chief reason for this act, on the part of the Syracusans, was that they saw that the place offered a point of attack upon Sicily and were afraid that the Athenians might some time make it a base from which to move against Syracuse with a larger force; the motive of the Locrians was their hostility to the Rhegians, whom they desired to subdue by both land

and sea. And, indeed, the Locrians had at this same time invaded the territory of the Rhegians with all their forces in order to prevent them from giving any aid to the Messenians; and, besides, some Rhegians who were living in exile among the Locrians also urged them to make the invasion; for Rhegium had for a long time been in a state of revolution, and it was impossible at the moment to make any defence against the Locrians, who were consequently the more eager