han thirty ships against sixteen Athenian and eight Rhegian
vessels. Defeated by the Athenians they hastily set off, each for
himself, to their own stations at Messina and Rhegium, with the loss of
one ship; night coming on before the battle was finished. After this
the Locrians retired from the Rhegian territory, and the ships of the
Syracusans and their allies united and came to anchor at Cape Pelorus,
in the territory of Messina, where their land forces joined them. Here
the Athenians and Rhegians sailed up, and seeing the ships unmanned,
made an attack, in which they in their turn lost one vessel, which was
caught by a grappling iron, the crew saving themselves by swimming.
After this the Syracusans got on board their ships, and while they were
being towed alongshore to Messina, were again attacked by the Athenians,
but suddenly got out to sea and became the assailants, and caused them
to lose another vessel. After thus holding their own in the voyage
alongshore and in the engagement as above described, the Syracusans
sailed on into the harbour of Messina.

Meanwhile the Athenians, having received warning that Camarina was
about to be betrayed to the Syracusans by Archias and his party, sailed
thither; and the Messinese took this opportunity to attack by sea and
land with all their forces their Chalcidian neighbour, Naxos. The first
day they forced the Naxians to keep their walls, and laid waste their
country; the next they sailed round with their ships, and laid waste
their land on the river Akesines, while their land forces menaced the
city. Meanwhile the Sicels came down from the high country in great
numbers, to aid against the Messinese; and the Naxians, elated at the
sight, and animated by a belief that the Leontines and their other
Hellenic allies were coming to their support, suddenly sallied out from
the town, and attacked and routed the Messinese, killing more than a
thousand of them; while the remainder suffered severely in their retreat
home, being attacked by the barbarians on the road, and most of them
cut off. The ships put in to Messina, and afterwards dispersed for their
different homes. The Leontines and their allies, with the Athenians,
upon this at once turned their arms against the now weakened Messina,
and attacked, the Athenians with their ships on the side of the harbour,
and the land forces on that of the town. The Messinese, however,
sallying out with Demoteles and some Locrians who had been