History of the Peloponnesian War

About the same time that spring, before the grain was ripe, the Peloponnesians and their allies made an invasion of Attica, under the command of Agis son of Archidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians; and encamping there they ravaged the land.

But the Athenians despatched the forty ships[*](cf3.115.4.) to Sicily, as they had previously planned, together with the two remaining generals, Eurymedon and Sophocles, who were still at home; for Pythodorus, the third general, had already arrived in Sicily.

These had instructions, as they sailed past Corcyra, to have a care for the inhabitants of the city, who were being plundered by the exiles on the mountain,[*](cf. 3.85.4.) and the Peloponnesians with sixty ships had already sailed thither, with the purpose of aiding the party on the mountain and also in the belief that, since a great famine prevailed in the city, they would easily get control of affairs.

Demosthenes also, who had retired into private life after his return from Acarnania,[*](cf. 3.104.1.) now, at his own request, received permission from the Athenians to use the forty ships at his discretion in operations about the Peloponnesus.