134 HISTOUY OF GKKKCE. the blockade of that island, next in operations at Korkyra, that it did not reach Sicily until about the month of September. 1 Such delay, eminently advantageous for Athens generally, was fatal to her hopes of success in Sicily during the whole summer. For Pythodorus, acting only with the fleet previously commanded by Laches at Rhegium, was not merely defeated in a descent upon Lckri, but experienced a more irreparable loss by the revolt of Messene, which had surrendered to Laches a few months before ; and which, together with Rhegium, had given to the Athenians the command of the strait. Apprized of the coming Athenian fleet, the Syracusans were anxious to deprive them of this im- portant base of operations against the island ; and a fleet of twenty sail half Syracusan, half Lokrian was enabled by the con- currence of a party in Messene to seize the town. It would appear that the Athenian fleet was then at Rhegium, but that town was at the same time threatened by the entrance of the entire land-force of Lokri, together with a body of Rhegine exiles: these latter were even not without hopes of obtaining admission by means of a favorable party in the town. Though such hopes were disappointed, yet the diversion prevented all succor from Rhegium to Messene. The latter town now served as a harbor for the fleet hostile to Athens, 2 which was speedily reinforced to more than thirty sail, and began maritime operations forthwith, in hopes of crushing the Athenians and capturing Rhegium, before Eurymedon should arrive. But the Athenians, though they had only sixteen triremes together with eight others from Rhegium, gained a decided victory, in an action brought on accidentally for the possession of a merchantman sailing through the strait. They put the enemy's ships to flight, and drove them to seek refuge, some under protection of the Syracusan land-force at Cape Pelo- rus near Messene, others under the Lokrian force near Rhegium, each as they best could, with the loss of one trireme. 3 Thia de- 1 Thucyd. iv, 48. a Thucyd. iii, 115 ; iv, 1. 3 Thucvd. iv, 24. na.1 viKrj-&evTE<; vxb TUV 'A&pttUtfV diu TU%OV( tiiri^Xev- eai', <Jf funarot erv^ov, if TU oinela arparoTreJa, TO re Iv ry fileaaf/vy /cat tc iui 'Pij-yiu, fuav yai/v uTroXetravrff, etc. I concur in Dr. Arnold's explanation of this passage, yet conceiving that t"i3 words uf enaa-01 iroxov designate the flight as disorderly, insomuch
that all the Lokrian ships did not get back to the Lokrian station, nor al
