History of the Peloponnesian War

And the Athenians sent the ships, professedly on the ground of their relationship, but really because they wished to prevent the importation of grain from Sicily into the Peloponnesus, and also to make a preliminary test whether the affairs of Sicily could be brought under their own control.

So they established themselves at Rhegium in Italy and proceeded to carry on the war in concert with their allies. And the summer ended.

In the course of the following winter[*](427 B.C.) the plague again[*](cf. 2.47. ff.) fell upon the Athenians; and indeed it had not died out at any time entirely, though there had been a period