Book 3
90.1
During the same summer war was being waged in Sicily, not only by other peoples as they each had occasion to do so, but also by the Siceliots themselves, who were campaigning against one another, and likewise by the Athenians in concert with their allies; but I shall mention only the most memorable things done by the Athenians in concert with their allies, or against the Athenians by their opponents.
90.2
After Charoeades, the Athenian general, had been slain in battle by the Syracusans, Laches, being now in sole command of the fleet, made an expedition with the allies against Mylae, a town belonging to the Messenians. It so happened that two divisions of the Messenians were in garrison at Mylae, and that these had laid an ambush against the men who had landed from the ships.
90.3
The Athenians and their allies, however, put to rout the ambushing troops, slaying many of them; then, assaulting the fortification, they compelled its defenders to surrender the acropolis by agreement and march with them against Messene.
90.4
After this, on the approach of the Athenians and their allies, the Messenians also submitted, giving hostages and offering the other customary pledges of good faith.
91.1
That same summer the Athenians sent thirty ships round the Peloponnesus under the command of Demosthenes son of Alcisthenes and Procles son of Theodorus, and sixty ships and two thousand hoplites under the command of Nicias son of Niceratus, to Melos.
91.2
For the Melians, although they were islanders,The Melians and Theraeans, as Laconian colonists (v. lxxxiv. 2), alone in the Cyclades held aloof from the Athenian alliance. were unwilling to be subject to Athens or even to join their alliance, and the Athenians wished to bring them over.
91.3
But when they would not submit, even after their land had been ravaged, the Athenians left Melos and sailed to Oropus in the territory of Graïa, and the hoplites, landing there at nightfall, proceeded at once by land to Tanagra in Boeotia.
