Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 2.djvu/289

 25,27] DISTRESS OF ATHENIANS AT HOME 281 the place, as they did Pylos, their head-quarters for marauding expeditions. Demosthenes assisted in the occupation, and then sailed for Corcyra, intending to collect additional forces from the allies in that region, and to make his way with all speed to Sicily. Charicles waited until he had completed the fort, and then leaving a garrison he sailed home with his thirty ships, accompanied by the Argives. During the same summer there arrived at Athens 27 thirteen hundred Thracian targeteers The Dian Thmdans of the Dian race, who carried dirks; arrive too late to join they were to have sailed with Demo- the cxpcdHion. sthenes to Sicily, but came too late, and the Athenians determined to send them back to their native country. Each soldier was receiving a drachma '"* per day; and to use them against Decelea would have been too expensive. For during this summer Decelea had been fortified by the whole Peloponnesian army, and Thucydides digresses was henceforward regularly occupied ^° ^^^"^ "-^ *'"' S^^"^ r iU r ii ■ i_ sufferings caused l)y the for the annoyance ot the country by fo,iijication of Deeelea, a succession of garrisons sent from the iviiich permanently com- allied cities, whose incursions did ^nandedtheivitolecoun- immense harm to the Athenians: the ',?' '^^' '"""/'*'''" -V tliousand slaves ; great destruction of property and life which destruction of cattle and ensued did as much as anything to ruin i>'j"'y lo cavalry. the city. Hitherto the invasions had been brief and did not prevent them from getting something from the soil in the interval ; but now the Peloponnesians were continually on the spot ; and sometimes they were reinforced by additional troops, but always the regular garrison, who were com- pelled to find their own supplies, overran and despoiled the country. The Lacedaemonian king, Agis, was pre- sent in person, and devoted his whole energies to the war. The sufferings of the Athenians were terrible. For " Qd. U 2