4–1
Now these set out in the first contingent from Taenarus in Laconia and made for the open sea; and following them, but not long afterwards, the Corinthians sent out five hundred hoplites, some from Corinth itself, others being Arcadians whom they had taken on for hire, appointing in command of them Alexarchus, a Corinthian. The Sicyonians also despatched at the same time as the Corinthians two hundred hoplites under the command of Sargeus, a Sicyonian.
Meanwhile the twenty-five Corinthian ships, which had been manned during the winter, lay opposite the twenty Athenian ships at Naupactus, until their hoplites in the merchant-ships had got well on their voyage from the Peloponnesus; it was for this purpose, indeed, that they had been manned in the first place—that the Athenians might not give their attention so much to the merchant-ships as to the triremes.
Meanwhile the Athenians, simultaneously with the fortification of Deceleia and at the very beginning of spring, sent thirty ships round the Peloponnesus under the command of Charicles son of Apollodorus, whose orders were on reaching Argos to summon to the ships Argive hoplites, in accordance with the terms of their alliance.
