aking sail for Peloponnese, joined
Charicles and the thirty ships of the Athenians. Taking on board the
heavy infantry from Argos they sailed to Laconia, and, after first
plundering part of Epidaurus Limera, landed on the coast of Laconia,
opposite Cythera, where the temple of Apollo stands, and, laying waste
part of the country, fortified a sort of isthmus, to which the Helots of
the Lacedaemonians might desert, and from whence plundering incursions
might be made as from Pylos. Demosthenes helped to occupy this place,
and then immediately sailed on to Corcyra to take up some of the
allies in that island, and so to proceed without delay to Sicily; while
Charicles waited until he had completed the fortification of the place
and, leaving a garrison there, returned home subsequently with his
thirty ships and the Argives also.

This same summer arrived at Athens thirteen hundred targeteers, Thracian
swordsmen of the tribe of the Dii, who were to have sailed to Sicily
with Demosthenes. Since they had come too late, the Athenians determined
to send them back to Thrace, whence they had come; to keep them for
the Decelean war appearing too expensive, as the pay of each man was
a drachma a day. Indeed since Decelea had been first fortified by the
whole Peloponnesian army during this summer, and then occupied for the
annoyance of the country by the garrisons from the cities relieving
each other at stated intervals, it had been doing great mischief to the
Athenians; in fact this occupation, by the destruction of property and
loss of men which resulted from it, was one of the principal causes of
their ruin. Previously the invasions were short, and did not prevent
their enjoying their land during the rest of the time: the enemy was now
permanently fixed in Attica; at one time it was an attack in force, at
another it was the regular garrison overrunning the country and making
forays for its subsistence, and the Lacedaemonian king, Agis, was in the
field and diligently prosecuting the war; great mischief was therefore
done to the Athenians. They were deprived of their whole country: more
than twenty thousand slaves had deserted, a great part of them artisans,
and all their sheep and beasts of burden were lost; and as the cavalry
rode out daily upon excursions to Decelea and to guard the country,
their horses were either lamed by being constantly worked upon rocky
ground, or wounded by the enemy.

Besides, the transport of provisions