coming masters of the country, went up to Mount
Istone, and fortifying themselves there, began to annoy those in the
city and obtained command of the country.

At the close of the same summer the Athenians sent twenty ships
under the command of Laches, son of Melanopus, and Charoeades, son of
Euphiletus, to Sicily, where the Syracusans and Leontines were at
war. The Syracusans had for allies all the Dorian cities except
Camarina--these had been included in the Lacedaemonian confederacy from
the commencement of the war, though they had not taken any active part
in it--the Leontines had Camarina and the Chalcidian cities. In Italy
the Locrians were for the Syracusans, the Rhegians for their Leontine
kinsmen. The allies of the Leontines now sent to Athens and appealed
to their ancient alliance and to their Ionian origin, to persuade the
Athenians to send them a fleet, as the Syracusans were blockading them
by land and sea. The Athenians sent it upon the plea of their common
descent, but in reality to prevent the exportation of Sicilian corn
to Peloponnese and to test the possibility of bringing Sicily into
subjection. Accordingly they established themselves at Rhegium in Italy,
and from thence carried on the war in concert with their allies.

CHAPTER XI

_Year of the War--Campaigns of Demosthenes in Western Greece--Ruin of
Ambracia_

Summer was now over. The winter following, the plague a second time
attacked the Athenians; for although it had never entirely left them,
still there had been a notable abatement in its ravages. The second
visit lasted no less than a year, the first having lasted two; and
nothing distressed the Athenians and reduced their power more than this.
No less than four thousand four hundred heavy infantry in the ranks died
of it and three hundred cavalry, besides a number of the multitude
that was never ascertained. At the same time took place the numerous
earthquakes in Athens, Euboea, and Boeotia, particularly at Orchomenus
in the last-named country.

The same winter the Athenians in Sicily and the Rhegians, with thirty
ships, made an expedition against the islands of Aeolus; it being
impossible to invade them in summer, owing to the want of water. These
islands are occupied by the Liparaeans, a Cnidian colony, who live
in one of them of no great size called Lipara; and from this as their
headquarters cultivate the rest, Didyme, Strongyle, and Hiera. In Hiera
the people in those parts be