Summer [VII 19–87, VIII 1]

Right at the start of the following spring – at an earlier date than ever before, in fact – the Spartans and their allies invaded Attica, under the command of Agis, son of Archidamus and king of the Spartans. They first wasted the land in the area of the plain and then began building a fort at Deceleia, dividing the work between the allied states. Deceleia is about eleven miles from the city of Athens and approximately the same or a little further from Boeotia. The fort was built overlooking the plain and the richest parts of the land with a view to despoiling them, and it was clearly visible from as far away as the city of Athens.

While the Peloponnesians and their allies were building this fort in Attica, those in the Peloponnese were at about the same time dispatching hoplites to Sicily in transport ships. The Spartans selected the best of the present or recently enfranchised helots, 600 hoplites in all, and sent them under the command of the Spartiate Eccritus; and the Boeotians chose 300 hoplites to go under the command of the Thebans Zenon and Nicon and the Thespian Hegesander. These troops were among the first to sail, putting out into the open sea from Taenarum in Laconia; not long after them the Corinthians sent 500 hoplites, some from Corinth itself, others being Arcadian mercenaries they hired in, and appointed the Corinthian Alexarchus to the command. The Sicyonians dispatched an additional 200 hoplites along with the Corinthians under the command of Sargeus, a Sicyonian. Meanwhile the twenty-five Corinthian ships that had been manned during the winter stood off facing the twenty Athenian ships at Naupactus, which was precisely why they had been manned in the first place – to focus the Athenians’ attention on the triremes rather than the merchant ships.