Phormio likewise sent to Athens to make known both the enemy's preparation and his own former victory and withal to will them to send speedily unto him as many galleys as they could make ready because they were every day in expectation of a new fight. Hereupon they sent him twenty galleys but commanded him that had the charge of them to go first into Crete.

For Nicias, a Cretan of Gortyna, the public host of the Athenians, had persuaded them to a voyage against Cydonia, telling them they might take it in, being now their enemy, which he did to gratify the Polichnitae that bordered upon the Cydonians.

Therefore with these galleys he sailed into Crete and together with the Polichnitae wasted the territory of the Cydonians, where also, by reason of the winds and weather unfit to take sea in, he wasted not a little of his time.

In the meantime, whilst these Athenians were wind-bound in Crete, the Peloponnesians that were in Cyllene in order of battle sailed along the coast of Panormus of Achaia, to which also were their land forces come to aid them.

Phormio likewise sailed by the shore to Rhium Molycricum and anchored without it with twenty galleys, the same he had used in the former battle.