History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides

Thucydides. The history of the Peloponnesian War, Volume 1-2. Dale, Henry, translator. London: Heinemann and Henry G. Bohn, 1851-1852.

But the Athenians despatched the forty ships to Sicily, as they had been preparing to do, and the remaining generals, Eurymedon and Sophocles; for Pythodorus, the third of them, had already arrived in Sicily before them.

These they also ordered to attend, as they sailed by the island, to those of the Corcyraeans who were in the city, and who were being plundered by the exiles on the mountain; sixty ships having likewise sailed from the Peloponnese to assist those on the mountain, and with an idea, that as there was a great famine in the city, they should easily possess themselves of the government.

Demosthenes, who had continued in a private capacity since his return from Acarnania, was, at his own request, authorized by them to use that fleet, if he wished, for service about the Peloponnese.