History of the Peloponnesian War

The winter following, upon the great overthrow of the Athenians in Sicily, all the Grecians were presently up against them. Those who before were confederates of neither side thought fit no longer, though uncalled, to abstain from the war, but to go against the Athenians of their own accord, as having not only every one severally this thought, that had the Athenians prospered in Sicily they would afterwards have come upon them also, but imagined withal that the rest of the war would be but short, whereof it would be an honour to participate. And such of them as were confederates of the Lacedaemonians longed now more than ever to be freed as soon as might be of their great toil.

But above all, the cities subject to the Athenians were ready, even beyond their ability, to revolt; as they that judged according to their passion, without admitting reason in the matter, that the next summer they were to remain with victory.

But the Lacedaemonians themselves took heart, not only from all this, but also principally from that, that their confederates in Sicily with great power, having another navy now necessarily added to their own, would in all likelihood be with them in the beginning of the spring.

And being every way full of hopes, they purposed without delay to fall close to the war, making account, if this were well ended, both to be free hereafter from any more such dangers as the Athenians, if they had gotten Sicily, would have put them into, and also, having pulled them down, to have the principality of all Greece now secure unto themselves.