taken, and returned after being defeated
in battle by the Locrians.

In the first days of this spring, the stream of fire issued from Etna,
as on former occasions, and destroyed some land of the Catanians, who
live upon Mount Etna, which is the largest mountain in Sicily. Fifty
years, it is said, had elapsed since the last eruption, there having
been three in all since the Hellenes have inhabited Sicily. Such were
the events of this winter; and with it ended the sixth year of this war,
of which Thucydides was the historian.

BOOK IV

CHAPTER XII

_Seventh Year of the War--Occupation of Pylos--Surrender of the Spartan
Army in Sphacteria_

Next summer, about the time of the corn's coming into ear, ten Syracusan
and as many Locrian vessels sailed to Messina, in Sicily, and occupied
the town upon the invitation of the inhabitants; and Messina revolted
from the Athenians. The Syracusans contrived this chiefly because they
saw that the place afforded an approach to Sicily, and feared that the
Athenians might hereafter use it as a base for attacking them with a
larger force; the Locrians because they wished to carry on hostilities
from both sides of the strait and to reduce their enemies, the people of
Rhegium. Meanwhile, the Locrians had invaded the Rhegian territory with
all their forces, to prevent their succouring Messina, and also at
the instance of some exiles from Rhegium who were with them; the long
factions by which that town had been torn rendering it for the moment
incapable of resistance, and thus furnishing an additional temptation
to the invaders. After devastating the country the Locrian land forces
retired, their ships remaining to guard Messina, while others were being
manned for the same destination to carry on the war from thence.

About the same time in the spring, before the corn was ripe, the
Peloponnesians and their allies invaded Attica under Agis, the son of
Archidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians, and sat down and laid waste the
country. Meanwhile the Athenians sent off the forty ships which they
had been preparing to Sicily, with the remaining generals Eurymedon
and Sophocles; their colleague Pythodorus having already preceded them
thither. These had also instructions as they sailed by to look to the
Corcyraeans in the town, who were being plundered by the exiles in the
mountain. To support these exiles sixty Peloponnesian vessels had lately
sailed, it being thought that the famine raging