OOK    VIL
 

B.C.414.     Gylippus  and Pythen, after  refitring their ships at VII. 1.
■ ^^' ^' Tarentum, coasted   along  to  the  Epizephyrian  Locri. Gyhppus
They now learned the truth, that Syracuse was not as Himera'
yet completely invested, but that an army might still an'^army^
enter by way of Epipolae.    So they considered whether awTh?fe
they should steer their course to the left or to the rlg-ht thousand

in all

of Sicily.   They might attempt to throw themselves into marches
Syracuse by sea, but the risk would be great; or they s^Tacuse.
might go first to Himera, and gathering a force of the
Himeraeans, and of any others whom they could induce
to join them,   rnake  their way by land.    They deter¬
mined to sail to Himera.    Nicias, when he heard that
they were at Locri, although he had despised them at
first, now sent out four Athenian ships to Intercept them ;
but these had not as yet arrived at Rhegium, and came
too late.   So they sailed through the strait, and touching
by the way at Rhegium and Messene, reached Himera.
There having drawn up their ships on the beach they
persuaded the Himeraeans to make common cause with
them, and not only to join In the expedition themselves,
byt to supply arms to all their unarmed sailors.    They
then sent to the Selinuntlans and told them  to come
and meet them with their whole army at an appointed
place.    The Geloans and certain of the Sicels also pro¬
mised to send them a small force; the latter with the
more alacrity because Archonides, a Sicel king in these
parts  who was  a  powerful   man  and   friendly to  the
Athenians,  had   recently   died,  and  because Gylippus