History of the Peloponnesian War

to attack. The Locrians first ravaged the country and then withdrew their land forces, but their ships continued guarding Messene; and still other ships were now being manned to be stationed at Messene and to carry on war from there.

About the same time that spring, before the grain was ripe, the Peloponnesians and their allies made an invasion of Attica, under the command of Agis son of Archidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians; and encamping there they ravaged the land.

But the Athenians despatched the forty ships[*](cf3.115.4.) to Sicily, as they had previously planned, together with the two remaining generals, Eurymedon and Sophocles, who were still at home; for Pythodorus, the third general, had already arrived in Sicily.