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.
Acrae and Casmenae were founded by the Syracusans; Acrae seventy years after Syracuse, and Casmenae nearly twenty years after Acrae.
Camarina was in the first instance founded by the Syracusans, just about a hundred and thirty-five years after the building of Syracuse, its founders being Dascon and Menecolus. But the Camarinaeans having been driven out after a war by the Syracusans on account of their revolting from them, some time after, Hippocrates, tyrant of Gela, having received their territory as a ransom for some Syracusan prisoners, himself acting as founder, re-settled Camarina. And having again been depopulated by Gelo, it was settled for the third time by the Geloans.
So many were the nations of Greeks and barbarians that inhabited Sicily, and such was the size of the island against which the Athenians were eager to make an expedition; being desirous (to mention their truest motive) of gaining dominion over the whole of it; but at the same time wishing, as a plausible pretext, to succour their own kinsmen, and the allies they had gained besides.
Above all, they were instigated by ambassadors from the Segestans, who had come to Athens and invoked their aid more earnestly than ever. For being borderers of the Selinuntines, they had gone to war with them on certain questions respecting marriage rights, and for some debated territory; and the Selinuntines, having taken the Syracusans for their allies, were pressing them hard with hostilities both by land and sea. Consequently the Segestans reminded the Athenians of their alliance, which had been formed in the time of Laches and of the former war with the Leontines, and begged them to send a fleet and assist them; alleging many other things, and, as the sum and substance of all,
that if the Syracusans should be unpunished for the depopulation of Leontini, and, by ruining such of the Athenian allies as were still left should themselves obtain the whole power of Sicily; there would be danger of their some time or other coming with a large force, as Dorians, to the aid of Dorians, on the strength of their connexion, and, moreover, as colonists, to the aid of the Peloponnesians who had sent them out, and so joining in the destruction of the Athenian power. It were wise therefore, in concert with the remaining allies, to resist the Syracusans;
especially as they would themselves furnish money sufficient for the war.The Athenians, hearing these things in their assemblies from the Segestans and their supporters, who were repeatedly alleging them, [*]( Or, voted to send, etc., according to Bekker's and Poppo's reading of πέμψαι, instead of πέμψαντες.) passed a decree on the subject; sending ambassadors, in the first place, to see about the money, whether it were already laid up, as they asserted, in the treasury and in the temples, and at the same time to ascertain what was the state of the war with the Selinuntines.
The ambassadors of the Athenians, then, were thus sent to Sicily. The same winter, the Lacedaemonians and their allies, except the Corinthians, having made an expedition into the Argive territory, ravaged a small part of the land, and took some yokes of oxen, and carried off some corn. They also settled the Argive exiles at Orneae; and having left them a few men from the rest of their forces also, and made a truce for some time, on condition of the Orneatae and the Argives not injuring each other's land, they returned home with their army.
But the Athenians having come no long time after with thirty ships and six hundred heavy—armed, the Argives, in conjunction with the Athenians, taking the field with all their force, besieged the men in Orneae one day; but at night, the army having bivouacked at some distance, they escaped out of it. The next day, the Argives, on finding this, razed Orneae and returned, and the Athenians afterwards went home with their ships.