her preparations for war, the
Athenians were encamped at Naxos, and tried by negotiation to gain
as many of the Sicels as possible. Those more in the low lands, and
subjects of Syracuse, mostly held aloof; but the peoples of the interior
who had never been otherwise than independent, with few exceptions, at
once joined the Athenians, and brought down corn to the army, and in
some cases even money. The Athenians marched against those who refused
to join, and forced some of them to do so; in the case of others they
were stopped by the Syracusans sending garrisons and reinforcements.
Meanwhile the Athenians moved their winter quarters from Naxos to
Catana, and reconstructed the camp burnt by the Syracusans, and stayed
there the rest of the winter. They also sent a galley to Carthage,
with proffers of friendship, on the chance of obtaining assistance,
and another to Tyrrhenia; some of the cities there having spontaneously
offered to join them in the war. They also sent round to the Sicels and
to Egesta, desiring them to send them as many horses as possible, and
meanwhile prepared bricks, iron, and all other things necessary for the
work of circumvallation, intending by the spring to begin hostilities.

In the meantime the Syracusan envoys dispatched to Corinth and
Lacedaemon tried as they passed along the coast to persuade the Italiots
to interfere with the proceedings of the Athenians, which threatened
Italy quite as much as Syracuse, and having arrived at Corinth made a
speech calling on the Corinthians to assist them on the ground of their
common origin. The Corinthians voted at once to aid them heart and soul
themselves, and then sent on envoys with them to Lacedaemon, to help
them to persuade her also to prosecute the war with the Athenians more
openly at home and to send succours to Sicily. The envoys from Corinth
having reached Lacedaemon found there Alcibiades with his fellow
refugees, who had at once crossed over in a trading vessel from Thurii,
first to Cyllene in Elis, and afterwards from thence to Lacedaemon;
upon the Lacedaemonians' own invitation, after first obtaining a safe
conduct, as he feared them for the part he had taken in the affair
of Mantinea. The result was that the Corinthians, Syracusans, and
Alcibiades, pressing all the same request in the assembly of the
Lacedaemonians, succeeded in persuading them; but as the ephors and the
authorities, although resolved to send envoys to Syracuse to prevent