ABSTRACT
Ostensibly the expeditionary force the Athenians sent to Sicily in 415 was their response to an appeal from the people of Egesta, who had gone to war with those of neighbouring Selinous (now Selinunte), and were being hard pressed by them and their allies, the Syracusans. The Egestaian envoys were probably accompanied by ones from Leontinoi in eastern Sicily, though these may not actually have addressed the Athenian assembly, as Diodoros claims (12.83.2). In Thucydides’ account, the Egestaians speak on behalf of the people of Leontinoi, reminding the Athenians of the alliance between them and the Leontinines ‘in the time of Laches and the former war’ (i.e. 427: 6.6.2).1
