History of the Peloponnesian War

During the same summer the Athenians with sixty ships, two thousand hoplites, and a small detachment of cavalry, taking with them also some Milesians and others of their allies, made an expedition against Cythera. In command of the expedition were Nicias son of Niceratus, Nicostratus son of Dieitrephes, and Autocles son of Tolmaeus.

Now Cythera is an island adjacent to Laconia, lying off Malea; its inhabitants are Lacedaemonians of the class of the Perioeci, and an official called the Bailiff of Cythera used to cross over thither once a year from Sparta; they also used regularly to send over a garrison of hoplites and paid much attention to the place.

For it served them as a port of call for merchant ships from Egypt and Libya, and, moreover, pirates would be less likely to annoy Laconia from the sea,[*](ie. if Cythera were well guarded.) on which side alone it could be harmed; for the whole coast runs out towards the Sicilian and the Cretan seas.[*](Others take πᾶσα of the island, which forms as it were a bastion “running out into the Sicilian and Cretan seas.”)