Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 2.djvu/40

32 ATHENIAN EXPEDITION TO CORINTH [iV to put them in chains until peace was concluded, but if ^, . in the meantime the Lacedaemonians The pirsoners are , . , detained as securities mvaded Attica, to brmg them out and for Attica. The Mes- put them to death. They placed a senians of Nai.pacU.s ^^j-rison in Pvlos ; and the Messenians garrison Pylos. The ... Lacedaemonians are o{ Naupactus, regardmg the place as distressed and sue for their native land (for Pylos is situated in i'^'^'^'- the territory which was once Messenia), sent thither some of themselves, being such troops as were best suited for the service, who ravaged Laconia and did great harm, because they spoke the same language with the inhabitants. The Lacedaemonians had never before experienced this irregular and predatory warfare ; and finding the Helots desert, and dreading some serious domestic calamity, they were in great trouble. Although reluctant to expose their condition before the Athenians, they sent envoys to them and endeavoured to recover Pylos and the prisoners. But the Athenians only raised their terms, and at last, after they had made many fruit- less journeys, dismissed them. Thus ended the affair of P^'los. 42 During the same summer and immediately afterwards the Athenians attacked the Corinthian Athenian tmops land . . ., .,^ ,. , ,1 near Solygea. The territory With eighty ships, two thou- Corinthiaiis, iv/io are sand heavy-amicd, and cavalry to the warned from Argos, number of two hundred conveyed in cotne out to meet them. , . , t^i . ..„„„ „«„^,,, horse transports. 1 hey were accom- panied by allies from Miletus, Andros, and Carystus. Nicias the son of Niceratus, and two others, were in command. Very early in the morning they put in between the promontory Chersonesus and the stream Rhetus, to that part of the coast which is overhung by the Solygean ridge ; there in ancient times Dorian invaders had taken up their position and fought against their Aeolian enemies in Corinth, and to this day there is a village, called Soly- gea, on the hill which they occupied. From the beach where the crews landed this village is distant nearly a mile