History of the Peloponnesian War

Accordingly, taking over his ships and some troops he built three forts, in which most of the stores were deposited; and the large boats and the ships of war were now moored there.

And it was especially in consequence of this that the condition of the crews then first began to decline. For their water supply was scanty and not near at hand, and at the same time, whenever the sailors went out to fetch firewood they suffered heavily at the hands of the Syracusan horsemen, who overran the country. For the Syracusans had posted a third part of their cavalry at the hamlet near the Olympieum on account of the troops at Plemmyrium, that these might not go out and commit depredations.

Meanwhile Nicias, learning that the rest of the Corinthian ships were sailing up, sent twenty vessels to watch for them, with orders to waylay them in the neighbourhood of Locri, Rhegium, or the approach to Sicily.