7–9
and they were getting ready for the circumvallation bricks and iron and whatever else was needful, with a view to taking the war in hand as soon as spring opened. Meanwhile the Syracusan envoys, who had been sent to Corinth and Lacedaemon, as they sailed along the coast tried to persuade the ItaliotsGreek colonists settled in the part of Italy called Magna Graecia. not to tolerate the conduct of the Athenians, as the plot was aimed equally against them;
and when they reached Corinth they made an appeal to the Corinthians, urging them to send them aid on grounds of kinship. And the Corinthians at once took the lead in voting to aid them with all zeal themselves, and also sent envoys along with them to Lacedaemon, to help in persuading them not only to prosecute the war at home more openly against the Athenians, but also to send aid in some form to Sicily.
Accordingly there were present at Lacedaemon these envoys from Corinth, and also Alcibiades with his fellow-exiles. He had, at the time of which we have spoken,cf. 6.61.6. at once crossed over on a freight-boat from Thuria, going first to Cyllene in Elis, and had afterwards, on the summons of the Lacedaemonians themselves, come to Lacedaemon under safe-conduct;