(6.93) Thus spoke Alcibiades: the Lacedaemonians, who had been intending to send an army against Athens, but were still hesitating and looking about them, were greatly strengthened in their resolution when they heard all these points urged by him who, as they thought, knew best. Accordingly they now turned their thoughts to the fortification of Decelea, and determined to send immediate assistance to the Syracusans. They appointed Gylippus the son of Cleandridas commander of the Syracusan forces, and desired him to co-operate with the Syracusan and Corinthian representatives, and send aid to Sicily in the speediest and most effective manner which the circumstances admitted. Whereupon he told the Corinthians to despatch immediately two ships to him at Asine, and to fit out as many more as they meant to send; the latter were to be ready for sea when the season arrived. Coming to this understanding the envoys departed from Lacedaemon.
About this time the trireme which the Athenian generals had despatched from Sicily for money and cavalry97 arrived at Athens. The Athenians, hearing their request, voted money and a force of cavalry for the army. So the winter ended, and with it the seventeenth year in the Peloponnesian War of which Thucydides wrote the history.