The same summer the Athenians sent thirty galleys about Peloponnesus under the command of Demosthenes the son of Alkisthenes and Proclus the son of Theodorus and sixty galleys more with two thousand men of arms, commanded by Nicias the son of Niceratus, into Melos.

For the Athenians, in respect that the Melians were islanders and yet would neither be their subjects nor of their league, intended to subdue them.

But when upon the wasting of their fields they still stood out, they departed from Melos and sailed to Oropus in the opposite continent. Being there arrived within night, the men of arms left the galleys and marched presently by land to Tanagra in Boeotia.

To which place, upon a sign given, the Athenians that were in the city of Athens came also forth with their whole forces, led by Hipponnicus the son of Callias and Eurymedon the son of Thucles, and joined with them and, pitching their camp, spent the day in wasting the territory of Tanagra and lay there the night following.

The next day, they defeated in battle such of the Tanagrians as came out against them and also certain succours sent them from Thebes; and when they had taken up the arms of those that were slain and erected a trophy, they returned back, the one part to Athens, the other to their fleet.

And Nicias with his sixty galleys, having first sailed along the coast of Locris and wasted it, came home likewise.