g her navy with the funds
which they contributed, a revolt always found them without resources or
experience for war.

Next we come to the actions by land and by sea at the river Eurymedon,
between the Athenians with their allies, and the Medes, when the
Athenians won both battles on the same day under the conduct of Cimon,
son of Miltiades, and captured and destroyed the whole Phoenician fleet,
consisting of two hundred vessels. Some time afterwards occurred the
defection of the Thasians, caused by disagreements about the marts on
the opposite coast of Thrace, and about the mine in their possession.
Sailing with a fleet to Thasos, the Athenians defeated them at sea and
effected a landing on the island. About the same time they sent ten
thousand settlers of their own citizens and the allies to settle
the place then called Ennea Hodoi or Nine Ways, now Amphipolis. They
succeeded in gaining possession of Ennea Hodoi from the Edonians, but on
advancing into the interior of Thrace were cut off in Drabescus, a town
of the Edonians, by the assembled Thracians, who regarded the settlement
of the place Ennea Hodoi as an act of hostility. Meanwhile the Thasians
being defeated in the field and suffering siege, appealed to Lacedaemon,
and desired her to assist them by an invasion of Attica. Without
informing Athens, she promised and intended to do so, but was prevented
by the occurrence of the earthquake, accompanied by the secession of the
Helots and the Thuriats and Aethaeans of the Perioeci to Ithome. Most of
the Helots were the descendants of the old Messenians that were enslaved
in the famous war; and so all of them came to be called Messenians. So
the Lacedaemonians being engaged in a war with the rebels in Ithome,
the Thasians in the third year of the siege obtained terms from
the Athenians by razing their walls, delivering up their ships, and
arranging to pay the moneys demanded at once, and tribute in future;
giving up their possessions on the continent together with the mine.

The Lacedaemonians, meanwhile, finding the war against the rebels in
Ithome likely to last, invoked the aid of their allies, and especially
of the Athenians, who came in some force under the command of Cimon.
The reason for this pressing summons lay in their reputed skill in
siege operations; a long siege had taught the Lacedaemonians their own
deficiency in this art, else they would have taken the place by assault.
The first open quarrel between