When the blockade had endured for more than a year, and food in the city grew scarce, about half of the defending force made a bold dash for liberty, one stormy night, scaled the walls of circumvallation, and escaped. The remainder held out until some time in the next year, when they surrendered and were all put to death, the city being destroyed. The families of the Platæans had been sheltered at Athens before the siege began. _Thucydides, History, books 2-3._ GREECE: B. C. 429-427. The Peloponnesian War: Phormio's sea-fights. Revolt of Lesbos. Siege and capture of Mitylene. The ferocious decree of Cleon reversed. "At the same time that Archidamus laid siege to Plataea, a small Peloponnesian expedition, under a Spartan officer named Cnemus, had crossed the mouth of the Gulf of Corinth, and joined the land forces of the Leucadians and Ambraciots. They were bent on conquering the Acarnanians and the Messenians of Naupactus, the only continental allies whom Athens possessed in Western Greece. … When Cnemus had been joined by the troops of Leucas and the other Corinthian towns, and had further strengthened himself by summoning to his standard a number of the predatory barbarian tribes of Epirus, he advanced on Stratus, the chief city of Acarnania. At the same time a squadron of Peloponnesian ships collected at Corinth, and set sail down the gulf towards Naupactus. The only Athenian force in these waters consisted of twenty galleys under an able officer named Phormio, who was cruising off the straits of Rhium, to protect Naupactus and blockade the Corinthian Gulf. Both by land and by sea the operations of the Peloponnesians miscarried miserably. Cnemus collected a very considerable army, but as he sent his men forward to attack Stratus by three separate roads, he exposed them to defeat in detail. … By sea the defeat of the Peloponnesians was even more disgraceful; the Corinthian admirals Machaon and Isocrates were so scared, when they came across the squadron of Phormio at the mouth of the gulf, that, although they mustered 47 ships to his 20, they took up the defensive. Huddling together in a circle, they shrank from his attack, and allowed themselves to be hustled and worried into the Achaian harbour of Patrae, losing several ships in their flight. Presently reinforcements arrived; the Peloponnesian fleet was raised to no less than 77 vessels, and three Spartan officers were sent on board, to compel the Corinthian admirals, who had behaved so badly, to do their best in future. The whole squadron then set out to hunt down Phormio. They found him with his 20 ships coasting along the Aetolian shore towards Naupactus, and at once set out in pursuit. The long chase separated the larger fleet into scattered knots, and gave the fighting a disconnected and irregular character.