(3.88) During the same winter the Athenians in Sicily and the Rhegians made an expedition with thirty ships against the islands of Aeolus, as they are called, which in summer time cannot be attacked owing to the want of water. These islands belong to the Liparaeans, who are colonists of the Cnidians: they inhabit one of them, which is not large, and is called Lipara; from this they go and cultivate the rest, Didymè, Strongylè, and Hiera. The inhabitants believe that the forge of Hephaestus is in Hiera, because the island sends up a blaze of fire in the night-time and clouds of smoke by day. The Aeolian islands lie off the territory of the Sicels and Messenians; they were in alliance with Syracuse. The Athenians wasted the country, but finding that the inhabitants would not yield, sailed back to Rhegium. And so ended the winter, and with it the fifth year in the Peloponnesian War of which Thucydides wrote the history.