History of the Peloponnesian War

In the end of the same summer the Athenians sent twenty galleys into Sicily under the command of Laches the son of Melanopus and Charoeadas the son of Euphiletus, for the Syracusians and the Leontines were now warring against each other.

The confederates of the Syracusians were all the Doric cities except the Camarinaeans, which also in the beginning of this war were reckoned in the league of the Lacedaemonians but had not yet aided them in the war. The confederates of the Leontines were the Chalcidique cities together with Camarina. And in Italy the Locrians were with the Syracusians; but the Rhegians, according to their consanguinity, took part with the Leontines.

Now the confederates of the Leontines, in respect of their ancient alliance with the Athenians as also for that they were Ionians, obtained of the Athenians to send them galleys, for that the Leontines were deprived by the Syracusians of the use both of the land and sea.

And so the people of Athens sent aid unto them, pretending propinquity but intending both to hinder the transportation of corn from thence into Peloponnesus and also to test the possibility of taking the states of Sicily into their own hands.

These arriving at Rhegium in Italy joined with the confederates and began the war. And so ended this summer.