History of the Peloponnesian War

Such was the address of Alcibiades. The Lacedaemonians, who of themselves were previously intending to make an expedition against Athens, but were still acting with delay and circumspection, were far more determined, when he had informed them of these several particulars, and when they considered that they had heard them from the man who had most certain knowledge of them.

So that they now turned their thoughts to the fortification of Decelea, and to immediately sending some assistance to the Sicilians. Having appointed therefore Clearidas to the command of the Syracusans, they instructed him to deliberate with that people and the Corinthians, and to provide for succours reaching them on as large a scale, and with as much speed, as present circumstances permitted.

Accordingly he desired the Corinthians to send him at once two ships to Asine, and to let the rest, as many as they purposed sending, be equipped and in readiness to sail, when the proper time came.

Having arranged these points, they returned from Lacedaemon.

Now, too, arrived the Athenian trireme from Sicily, which the generals had sent for money and cavalry. And when the Athenians had heard their request, they resolved to send both the supplies for their armament and the cavalry. And so the winter ended, and the seventeenth year of this war, of which Thucydides wrote the history.