History of the Peloponnesian War

after which the Corcyraean exiles, (for five hundred of them had escaped,) having taken some forts that were on the mainland, were masters of their own territory on the opposite coast, and sallying forth from it, plundered those in the island, and did them much damage, a violent famine being produced in the city. They also sent embassies to Lacedaemon and Corinth about their restoration.

When they met with no success, they afterwards got some boats and auxiliaries and crossed over to the island, to the number of six hundred in all; and having burnt their boats, that they might have no hope from any thing but the command of the country, they went up to the hill Istone, and after building a fort on it, began to annoy those in the city, and were in the mean time masters of the country.

At the close of the same summer the Athenians despatched twenty ships to Sicily, with Laches son of Melanopus, and Charceades son of Euphiletus, in command of them.

For the Syracusans and Leontines had gone to war with each other; the Syracusans having, with the exception of Camarina, all the Dorian cities in alliance with them—for indeed these had joined the Lacedaemonian confederacy at the commencement of the war, though they had not taken any part in it with them—while the Leontines had the Chalcidian cities, and Camarina. In Italy the Locrians were on the side of the Syracusans; the Rhegians, on that of the Leontines, in consequence of their affinity to them.

So the allies of the Leontines sent to Athens, both on the ground of their former confederacy with them and because they were Ionians, and urged the Athenians to send them a fleet, for they were excluded by the Syracusans from the use both of land and sea.

Accordingly the Athenians sent it, on the pretence of their relationship, but really from a wish that no corn might be brought thence to the Peloponnese; and to make an experiment whether it were possible for them to bring Sicily into subjection to themselves.

Having established themselves therefore at Rhegium in Italy, they began the operations of the war in concert with their allies. And so the summer ended.

The following winter the plague a second time attacked the Athenians, having indeed never entirely left them, though there had been some abatement of it.