History of the Peloponnesian War

Thus spake Alcibiades. And the Lacedaemonians, though before this they had a purpose of their own accord to send an army against Athens but had delayed and neglected it, yet when these particularly were delivered by him, they were a great deal the more confirmed in the same, conceiving that what they had heard was from one that evidently knew it.

Insomuch as they had set their minds already upon the fortifying of Deceleia and upon the sending of some succours into Sicily for the present. And having assigned Gylippus, the son of Cleandridas, unto the Syracusian ambassadors for chief commander, they willed him to consider, both with them and the Corinthians, how best for their present means and with greatest speed some help might be conveyed unto them in Sicily.

He thereupon appointed the Corinthians to send him two galleys presently to Asine, and to furnish the rest they meant to send, and to have them ready to sail when occasion should serve.

This agreed upon, they departed from Lacedaemon. In the meantime the galley arrived at Athens which the generals sent home for money and horsemen. And the Athenians, upon hearing, decreed to send both provision and horsemen to the army. So the winter ended, and the seventeenth year of this war written by Thucydides.