History of The Peloponnesian War - Book III   

salvation in adversity, instead of allowing them to subsist against
the day of danger when their aid may be required.
While the revolutionary passions thus for the first time displayed
themselves in the factions of Corcyra, Eurymedon and the Athenian
fleet sailed away; after which some five hundred Corcyraean exiles who
had succeeded in escaping, took some forts on the mainland, and
becoming masters of the Corcyraean territory over the water, made this
their base to Plunder their countrymen in the island, and did so
much damage as to cause a severe famine in the town. They also sent
envoys to Lacedaemon and Corinth to negotiate their restoration; but
meeting with no success, afterwards got together boats and mercenaries
and crossed over to the island, being about six hundred in all; and
burning their boats so as to have no hope except in becoming masters
of the country, went up to Mount Istone, and fortifying themselves
there, began to annoy those in the city and obtained command of the
country.
At the close of the same summer the Athenians sent twenty ships
under the command of Laches, son of Melanopus, and Charoeades, son
of Euphiletus, to Sicily, where the Syracusans and Leontines were at
war. The Syracusans had for allies all the Dorian cities except
Camarina- these had been included in the Lacedaemonian confederacy
from the commencement of the war, though they had not taken any active
part in it- the Leontines had Camarina and the Chalcidian cities. In
Italy the Locrians were for the Syracusans, the Rhegians for their
Leontine kinsmen. The allies of the Leontines now sent to Athens and
appealed to their ancient alliance and to their Ionian origin, to
persuade the Athenians to send them a fleet, as the Syracusans were
blockading them by land and sea. The Athenians sent it upon the plea
of their common descent, but in reality to prevent the exportation
of Sicilian corn to Peloponnese and to test the possibility of
bringing Sicily into subjection. Accordingly they established
themselves at Rhegium in Italy, and from thence carried on the war
in concert with their allies.

CHAPTER XI.

Year of the War - Campaigns of Demosthenes
in Western Greece - Ruin of Ambracia

SUMMER was now over. The winter following, the plague a second
time attacked the Athenians; for although it had never entirely left
them, still there had been a notable abatement in its ravages. The
second visit lasted no less than a year, the first having lasted
two; and nothing distressed the Athenians and reduced their power more
than this. No less than four thousand four hundred heavy infantry in
the ranks died of it and three hundred cavalry, besides a number of
the multitude that was never ascertained. At the same time took
place the numerous earthquakes in Athens, Euboea, and Boeotia,
particularly at Orchomenus in the last-named country.
The same winter the Athenians in Sicily and the Rhegians, with
thirty ships, made an expedition against the islands of Aeolus; it
being impossible to invade them in summer, owing to the want of water.
These islands are occupied by the Liparaeans, a Cnidian colony, who
live in one of them of no great size called Lipara; and from this as
their headquarters cultivate the rest, Didyme, Strongyle, and Hiera.
In Hiera the people in those parts believe that Hephaestus has his
forge, from the quantity of flame which they see it send out by night,
and of smoke by day. These islands lie off the coast of the Sicels and
Messinese, and were allies of the Syracusans. The Athenians laid waste
their land, and as the inhabitants did not submit, sailed back to
Rhegium. Thus the winter ended, and with it ended the fifth year of
this war, of which Thucydides was the historian.
The next summer the Peloponnesians and their allies set out to
invade Attica under the command of Agis, son of Archidamus, and went