History of the Peloponnesian War

On the arrival of the men, the Athenians determined to keep them in prison, fill some arrangement should be made; and if the Lacedaemonians should before that invade their territory, to take them out and put them to death.

They also arranged for the defence of Pylus; and the Messenians of Naupactus sent to the place, as to the land of their fathers, (for Pylus is a part of what was formerly the Messenian country,) such of their men as were most fit for the service, and plundered Laconia, and annoyed them most seriously by means of their common dialect.

The Lacedaemonians having had no experience aforetime in such a predatory kind of warfare, and finding their Helots deserting, and fearing that they might see their country revolutionized to even a still greater extent, were not easy under it; but, although unwilling to show this to the Athenians, they sent ambassadors to them, and endeavoured to recover Pylus and the men.

They, however, were grasping at greater advantages, and though they often went to them, sent them back without effecting any thing. These then were the things that happened about Pylus.