Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 2.djvu/269

104,105! ATHENIANS LAND IN LACONIA 261 then continued his voyage from Tarentum along the coast of Italy. He was caught in the Terinaean gulf =» by a wind which in this region blows violently and steadily from the north, and was carried into the open sea. After ex- periencing a most violent storm he returned to Tarentum, where he drew up those of his ships which had suffered in the gale and refitted them. Nicias heard of his ap- proach, but despised the small number of his ships ; in this respect he was like the Thurians. He thought that he had come on a mere privateering expedition, and for some time set no watch ^. During the same summer, about the same time, the 105 Lacedaemonians and their allies in- ^ , . Athemans violate the vaded Argohs and wasted most of the pence ivith the Laccdae- Argive territory. The Athenians as- monians by divastating sisted the Argives with thirty ships. ">^ Baconian coast. The use which they made of them was a glaring violation of the treaty with the Lacedaemonians. Hitherto they liad only gone out on marauding expeditions from Pylos; when they landed, it was not upon the shores of Laconia, but upon other parts of the Peloponnese ; and they had merely fought as the allies of the Argives and Mantineans. The Argives had often urged them just to land soldiers on Lacedaemonian ground, and to waste some part of Laconia, however small, without remaining, and they had refused. But now, under the command of Pythodorus, Laespodias, and Demaratus, they landed at Epidaurus Limera, Prasiae, and other places, and wasted the country. Thereby the Athenians at last gave the Lacedaemonians a right to complain of them and completely justified measures of retaliation. After the Athenian fleet had departed from Argos, and the Lacedaemonians had like- wise retired, the Argives invaded Phliasia, and having ravaged the country and killed a few of the Phliasians, returned home. » See note. •> Cp. vii. i med.