Early in the ensuing spring, Eurymedon and Sophoklês started from Athens for Sicily in command of this squadron, with instructions to afford relief at Korkyra in their way, and with Demosthenês on board to act on the coast of Peloponnesus. It was this fleet which, in conjunction with the land-forces under the command of Kleon, making a descent almost by accident on the Laconian coast at Pylos, achieved for Athens the most signal success of the whole war, the capture of the Lacedæmonian hoplites in Sphakteria.[198] But the fleet was so long occupied, first in the blockade of that island, next in operations at Korkyra, that it did not reach Sicily until about the month of September.[199] [198] See the preceding vol. vi, ch. lii. [199] Thucyd. iv, 48. Such delay, eminently advantageous for Athens generally, was fatal to her hopes of success in Sicily during the whole summer. For Pythodôrus, acting only with the fleet previously commanded by Lachês at Rhegium, was not merely defeated in a descent upon Lokri, but experienced a more irreparable loss by the revolt of Messênê, which had surrendered to Lachês a few months before; and which, together with Rhegium, had given to the Athenians the command of the strait. Apprized of the coming Athenian fleet, the Syracusans were anxious to deprive them of this important base of operations against the island; and a fleet of twenty sail—half Syracusan, half Lokrian—was enabled by the concurrence of a party in Messênê to seize the town. It would appear that the Athenian fleet was then at Rhegium, but that town was at the same time threatened by the entrance of the entire land-force of Lokri, together with a body of Rhegine exiles: these latter were even not without hopes of obtaining admission by means of a favorable party in the town. Though such hopes were disappointed, yet the diversion prevented all succor from Rhegium to Messênê. The latter town now served as a harbor for the fleet hostile to Athens,[200] which was speedily reinforced to more than thirty sail, and began maritime operations forthwith, in hopes of crushing the Athenians and capturing Rhegium, before Eurymedon should arrive. But the Athenians, though they had only sixteen triremes together with eight others from Rhegium, gained a decided victory, in an action brought on accidentally for the possession of a merchantman sailing through the strait. They put the enemy’s ships to flight, and drove them to seek refuge, some under protection of the Syracusan land-force at Cape Pelôrus near Messênê, others under the Lokrian force near Rhegium, each as they best could, with the loss of one trireme.[201] This defeat so broke up the scheme of Lokrian operations against the latter place, that their land-force retired from the Rhegine territory, while the whole defeated squadron was reunited on the opposite coast under Cape Pelôrus. Here the ships were moored close on shore under the protection of the land-force, when the Athenians