19.
The next spring, in the very beginning, earlier than ever before, the Lacedaemonians and their confederates entered with their army into Attica, under the command of Agis, the son of Archidamus, their king.
And first they wasted the champagne country, and then went in hand with the wall at Deceleia, dividing the work amongst the army, according to their cities.
[2]
This Deceleia is from the city of Athens at the most but one hundred and twenty furlongs, and about as much or a little more from Boeotia.
This fort they made in the plain, and in the most opportune place that could be to annoy the Athenians, and in sight of the city.
[3]
Now the Peloponnesians and their confederates in Attica went on with their fortification.
They in Peloponnesus sent away their ships with the men of arms about the same time into Sicily, of which the Lacedaemonians, out of the best of their Helotes and men made newly free, sent in the whole six hundred, and Eccritus, a Spartan, for commander;
and the Boeotians three hundred, under the conduct of Xenon and Nicon, Thebans, and Hegesander, a Thespian.
[4]
And these set forth first, and put to sea at Taenarus in Laconia.
After them a little, the Corinthians sent away five hundred more, part from the city itself of Corinth and part mercenary Arcadians, and Alexarchus, a Corinthian, for captain.
The Sicyonians also sent two hundred with them that went from Corinth, and Sargeus, a Sicyonian, for captain.
[5]
Now the twenty-five Corinthian galleys that were manned in winter lay opposite to the twenty galleys of Athens which were at Naupactus till such time as the men of arms in the ships from Peloponnesus might get away;
for which purpose they were also set out at first, that the Athenians might not have their minds upon these ships so much as upon the galleys.
The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. Thucydides. Thomas Hobbes. translator. London. Bohn. 1843.
This text was converted to electronic form by optical character recognition and has been proofread to a high level of accuracy.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.