And thus being on every account full of hope, they determined to devote themselves unflinchingly to the war, reckoning that by its successful termination they would both be released in future from all dangers, like that which would have encompassed them from the Athenians, if they had won Sicily in addition to their other dominion; and that, after subduing them, they would themselves then enjoy n safety the supremacy over the whole of Greece.
Agis, their king, set out therefore immediately, during his winter, with some troops from Decelea, and levied from the allies contributions for their fleet; and having turned in the direction of the Malian gulf, and carried off, on the ground of their long-standing enmity, the greater part of the exposed property of the Oetaeans, he exacted money for the ransom of it; and also compelled the Achaeans of Pthiotis, and the other subjects of the Thessalians thereabouts, (though the Thessalians remonstrated with him, and objected to it,) to give both hostages and money; the former of which he deposited at Corinth, and endeavoured to bring their countrymen over to the confederacy.
