History of the Peloponnesian War

For it was the place where their ships used to put in from Egypt and Libya, and by which Laconia was the less infested by thieves from the sea, being that way only subject to that mischief. For the island lieth wholly out into the Sicilian and Cretic seas.

The Athenians, arriving with their army, with ten of their galleys and two thousand men of arms of the Milesians, took a town lying to the sea, called Scandeia; and with the rest of their forces, having landed in the parts of the island towards Malea, marched into the city itself of the Cythereans, lying likewise to the sea.

The Cythereans they found standing all in arms prepared for them. And after the battle began, the Cythereans for a little while made resistance, but soon after turned their backs and fled into the higher part of the city, and afterwards compounded with Nicias and his fellow-commanders that the Athenians should determine of them whatsoever they thought good but death.

Nicias had had some conference with certain of the Cythereans before, which was also a cause that those things which concerned the accord both now and afterwards were both the sooner and with the more favour dispatched. For the Athenians did but remove the Cythereans, and that also because they were Lacedaemonians, and because the island lay in that manner upon the coast of Laconia.