History of the Peloponnesian War

Conon also, the captain of Naupactus, came to them and related that the twenty-five galleys of Corinth that lay before Naupactus would not give over war and yet delayed to fight, and therefore desired to have some galleys sent him, as being unable with his eighteen to give battle to twenty-five of the enemy.

Whereupon Demosthenes and Eurymedon sent ten galleys more to those at Naupactus, the nimblest of the whole fleet, by Conon himself, and went themselves about furnishing of what belonged to the army. Of whom Eurymedon went to Corcyra, and having appointed them there to man fifteen galleys, levied men of arms; for now giving over his course to Athens, he joined with Demosthenes, as having been elected with him in the charge of general; and Demosthenes took up slingers and darters in the parts about Acarnania.

The ambassadors of the Syracusians, which after the taking of Plemmyrium had been sent unto the cities about, having now obtained and levied an army amongst them, were conducting the same to Syracuse. But Nicias, upon intelligence thereof, sent unto such cities of the Siculi as had the passages and were their confederates, the Centoripines, Halicyaeans, and others, not to suffer the enemy to go by, but to unite themselves and stop them, for that they would not so much as offer to pass any other way, seeing the Agrigentines had already denied them.

When the Sicilians were marching, the Siculi, as the Athenians had desired them, put themselves in ambush in three several places, and setting upon them unawares and on a sudden, slew about eight hundred of them, and all the ambassadors save only one, a Corinthian, which conducted the rest that escaped, being about fifteen hundred, to Syracuse.

About the same time came unto them also the aid of the Camarinaeans, five hundred men of arms, three hundred darters, and three hundred archers. Also the Geloans sent them men for five galleys, besides four hundred darters and two hundred horsemen.

For now all Sicily, except the Agrigentines, who were neutral, but all the rest, who before stood looking on, came in to the Syracusian side against the Athenians.

[Nevertheless], the Syracusians, after this blow received amongst the Siculi, held their hands and assaulted not the Athenians for a while. Demosthenes and Eurymedon, having their army now ready, crossed over from Corcyra and the continent with the whole army to the promontory of Iapygia. From thence they went to the Choerades, islands of Iapygia, and here took in certain Iapygian darters to the number of two hundred and fifty, of the Messapian nation.