History of the Peloponnesian War

At the very beginning of the following[*](419 B.C.) summer, as Heracleia was in a grievous plight after the battle, the Boeotians took possession of it and dismissed Hegesippidas, the Lacedaemonian, for misgovernment. They occupied the place through fear that, while the Lacedaemonians were disturbed about matters in the Peloponnesus, the Athenians might

take it; the Lacedaemonians, however, were angry at them for this. During the same summer Alcibiades son of Cleinias, who was then a general of the Athenians, acting in concert with the Argives and their allies went into the Peloponnesus with a few Athenian hoplites and bowmen, and taking with him some of the allies from that region helped to settle matters pertaining to the alliance as he passed through the Peloponnesus with his army; coming to Patrae he persuaded the inhabitants to carry their walls down to the sea, and intended himself to build another fort at the Achaean Rhium.[*](A low point of land at the mouth of the Corinthian Gulf; on the opposite side of the strait was the Molycreian Rhium. The fort would have given the Athenians entire control of the entrance to the Gulf.) But the Corinthians, Sicyonians, and all those to whom the fortification of Rhium would have been a menace, went in force and prevented it.