defence of Pylos was not forgotten; the Messenians from Naupactus sent
to their old country, to which Pylos formerly belonged, some of the
likeliest of their number, and began a series of incursions into
Laconia, which their common dialect rendered most destructive. The
Lacedaemonians, hitherto without experience of incursions or a warfare
of the kind, finding the Helots deserting, and fearing the march of
revolution in their country, began to be seriously uneasy, and in spite
of their unwillingness to betray this to the Athenians began to send
envoys to Athens, and tried to recover Pylos and the prisoners. The
Athenians, however, kept grasping at more, and dismissed envoy after
envoy without their having effected anything. Such was the history of
the affair of Pylos.

CHAPTER XIII

_Seventh and Eighth Years of the War--End of Corcyraean Revolution--
Peace of Gela--Capture of Nisaea_

The same summer, directly after these events, the Athenians made an
expedition against the territory of Corinth with eighty ships and two
thousand Athenian heavy infantry, and two hundred cavalry on board horse
transports, accompanied by the Milesians, Andrians, and Carystians from
the allies, under the command of Nicias, son of Niceratus, with two
colleagues. Putting out to sea they made land at daybreak between
Chersonese and Rheitus, at the beach of the country underneath
the Solygian hill, upon which the Dorians in old times established
themselves and carried on war against the Aeolian inhabitants of
Corinth, and where a village now stands called Solygia. The beach where
the fleet came to is about a mile and a half from the village, seven
miles from Corinth, and two and a quarter from the Isthmus. The
Corinthians had heard from Argos of the coming of the Athenian armament,
and had all come up to the Isthmus long before, with the exception of
those who lived beyond it, and also of five hundred who were away in
garrison in Ambracia and Leucadia; and they were there in full force
watching for the Athenians to land. These last, however, gave them the
slip by coming in the dark; and being informed by signals of the
fact the Corinthians left half their number at Cenchreae, in case the
Athenians should go against Crommyon, and marched in all haste to the
rescue.

Battus, one of the two generals present at the action, went with
a company to defend the village of Solygia, which was unfortified;
Lycophron remaining to give battle wit