After this the Athenians weighed from Corcyra, and proceeded to cross
to Sicily with an armament now consisting of one hundred and thirty-four
galleys in all (besides two Rhodian fifty-oars), of which one hundred
were Athenian vessels--sixty men-of-war, and forty troopships--and the
remainder from Chios and the other allies; five thousand and one hundred
heavy infantry in all, that is to say, fifteen hundred Athenian citizens
from the rolls at Athens and seven hundred Thetes shipped as marines,
and the rest allied troops, some of them Athenian subjects, and besides
these five hundred Argives, and two hundred and fifty Mantineans serving
for hire; four hundred and eighty archers in all, eighty of whom were
Cretans, seven hundred slingers from Rhodes, one hundred and twenty
light-armed exiles from Megara, and one horse-transport carrying thirty
horses.

Such was the strength of the first armament that sailed over for the
war. The supplies for this force were carried by thirty ships of
burden laden with corn, which conveyed the bakers, stone-masons, and
carpenters, and the tools for raising fortifications, accompanied by one
hundred boats, like the former pressed into the service, besides many
other boats and ships of burden which followed the armament voluntarily
for purposes of trade; all of which now left Corcyra and struck across
the Ionian Sea together. The whole force making land at the Iapygian
promontory and Tarentum, with more or less good fortune, coasted along
the shores of Italy, the cities shutting their markets and gates against
them, and according them nothing but water and liberty to anchor, and
Tarentum and Locri not even that, until they arrived at Rhegium, the
extreme point of Italy. Here at length they reunited, and not gaining
admission within the walls pitched a camp outside the city in the
precinct of Artemis, where a market was also provided for them, and drew
their ships on shore and kept quiet. Meanwhile they opened negotiations
with the Rhegians, and called upon them as Chalcidians to assist their
Leontine kinsmen; to which the Rhegians replied that they would not
side with either party, but should await the decision of the rest of
the Italiots, and do as they did. Upon this the Athenians now began to
consider what would be the best action to take in the affairs of Sicily,
and meanwhile waited for the ships sent on to come back from Egesta, in
order to know whether there was really there the m