Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/383

115, 1 1 6] THE ATHEMANS IN SICILY 267 the Athenians in Sicily had sailed to Athens, and per- suaded the Athenians to send a larger fleet to their aid ; for their territory was in the power of the Syracusans, and they were kept off the sea by a few ships only ; so they were preparing to resist, and had begun to collect a navy. The Athenians manned forty ships for their relief, partly hoping to finish the war in Sicily the sooner, partly because they wanted to exercise their fleet. They despatched one of the commanders, Pythodorus, with a few ships, in- tending to send Sophocles the son of Sostratides, and Eurymedon the son of Thucles, with the larger division of the fleet afterwards. Pythodorus, having now succeeded Laches in the command, sailed at the end of the winter against the Locrian fort which Laches had previously taken", but he was defeated by the Locrians and retired. In the early spring the burning lava, not for the first time, ii6 issued from Mount Aetna, which is the „ ^,. , , ^ _ ' El up/tun 0/ Aetna. highest mountain in Sicily,, and devas- tated a portion of the territory of the Catanaeans who dwell on the skirts of Aetna. The last eruption is said to have taken place fifty years before ; and altogether three eruptions are recorded since the Hellenes first settled in Sicily. Such were the events of the winter; and so ended the sixth year in the Peloponnesian War of which Thucydides v/rote the history. » Cp. iii. 99.