History of the Peloponnesian War

Meanwhile the Sicels came down over the heights in large numbers to help in resisting the Messenians. When the Naxians saw them coming, they took heart, and calling to each other that the Leontines and their other Hellenic allies were approaching to defend them rushed suddenly out of the city and fell upon the Messenians, putting them to flight and killing over a thousand of them. The rest got back home with difficulty; for the barbarians attacked them in the roads and killed most of them. And the allied fleet, after putting in at Messene, dispersed to their several homes.

Thereupon the Leontines and their allies, in company with the Athenians, immediately made an expedition against Messene, believing it to be weakened, and attempted an assault upon it, the Athenians attacking with their ships on the side of the harbour, while the land forces moved against the town.

But the Messenians and some of the Locrians, who, under the command of Demoteles, had been left there as a garrison after the disaster at Naxos, made a sortie, and falling suddenly upon them routed the larger part of the army of the Leontines and killed many of them. Seeing this the Athenians disembarked and came to their aid, and attacking the Messenians while they were in disorder pursued them back into the city; they then set up a trophy and withdrew to Rhegium.

After this the Hellenes in Sicily, without the cooperation of the Athenians, continued to make expeditions against one another by land.

At Pylos, meanwhile, the Athenians were still besieging the Lacedaemonians on the island, and the army of the Peloponnesians on the mainland remained in its former position. The blockade, however, was harassing to the Athenians on account of the lack of both food and water;