History of the Peloponnesian War

The Lacedaemonian. therefore sent to the Chalcidians Thrace-ward, who had a truce with the Athenians from one ten days to another, and urged then to join Perdiccas in the war; but they would not. And so the winter ended, and the sixteenth year of this war, of which Thucydides wrote the history.

The following summer, as soon as the spring commenced, the ambassadors of the Athenians came from Sicily, and the Segestans with them, bringing sixty talents of uncoined silver, as a month's pay for sixty ships which they were to beg them to send.

And the Athenians having held an assembly, and heard from the Segestans and their own ambassadors a seductive and untrue report on the other subjects, and also, with regard to the money, that it was provided in abundance in the temples and the treasury; they voted to send sixty ships, with Alcibiades son of Clinias, Nicias son of Niceratus, and Lamachus son of Xenophanes, as commanders, with full powers, to assist the Segestans against the Selinuntines, and to join in re-founding Leontini, should they gain any advantage in the war, and to carry out all other measures in Sicily, as they should deem best for the Athenians.—