at Pylos, and the
Lacedaemonians asked back their ships according to the convention. The
Athenians, however, alleged an attack on the fort in contravention of
the truce, and other grievances seemingly not worth mentioning, and
refused to give them back, insisting upon the clause by which the
slightest infringement made the armistice void. The Lacedaemonians,
after denying the contravention and protesting against their bad faith
in the matter of the ships, went away and earnestly addressed themselves
to the war. Hostilities were now carried on at Pylos upon both sides
with vigour. The Athenians cruised round the island all day with two
ships going different ways; and by night, except on the seaward side in
windy weather, anchored round it with their whole fleet, which, having
been reinforced by twenty ships from Athens come to aid in the blockade,
now numbered seventy sail; while the Peloponnesians remained encamped on
the continent, making attacks on the fort, and on the look-out for any
opportunity which might offer itself for the deliverance of their men.

Meanwhile the Syracusans and their allies in Sicily had brought up
to the squadron guarding Messina the reinforcement which we left them
preparing, and carried on the war from thence, incited chiefly by the
Locrians from hatred of the Rhegians, whose territory they had invaded
with all their forces. The Syracusans also wished to try their fortune
at sea, seeing that the Athenians had only a few ships actually at
Rhegium, and hearing that the main fleet destined to join them was
engaged in blockading the island. A naval victory, they thought, would
enable them to blockade Rhegium by sea and land, and easily to reduce
it; a success which would at once place their affairs upon a solid
basis, the promontory of Rhegium in Italy and Messina in Sicily being so
near each other that it would be impossible for the Athenians to cruise
against them and command the strait. The strait in question consists
of the sea between Rhegium and Messina, at the point where Sicily
approaches nearest to the continent, and is the Charybdis through which
the story makes Ulysses sail; and the narrowness of the passage and
the strength of the current that pours in from the vast Tyrrhenian and
Sicilian mains, have rightly given it a bad reputation.

In this strait the Syracusans and their allies were compelled to fight,
late in the day, about the passage of a boat, putting out with rather
more t