354 HISTORY OF GREECE. temporary, continuing for five or six weeks at the farthest, and leaving the country in repose for the remainder of the year. But the Athenians now underwent from henceforward the fatal expe- rience of a hostile garrison within fifteen miles of their city ; an experience peculiarly painful this summer, as well from its nov- elty as from the extraordinary vigor which Agis displayed in his operations. His excursions were so widely extended, that no part of Attica was secure or could be rendered productive. Not only were all the sheep and cattle destroyed, but the slave? too, especially the most valuable slaves, or artisans, began to desert to Dekeleia in great numbers ; more than twenty thousand of them soon disappeared in this way. So terrible a loss of income, both to proprietors of land and to employers in the city, was farther aggravated by the increased cost and difficulty of import from Euboea. Provisions and cattle from that island had previ ously come over land from Oropus, but as that road was com- pletely stopped by the garrison of Dekeleia, they were now of necessity sent round Cape Suniurn by sea ; a transit more cir- cuitous and expensive, besides being open to attack from the enemy's privateers. 1 In the midst of such heavy privations, the demands on citizens and metics for military duty were multiplied beyond measure. The presence of the enemy at Dekeleia forced them to keep watch day and night throughout their long extent of wall, comprising both Athens and Peiraeus : in the daytime the hoplites of the city relieved each other on guard, but at night, nearly all of them were either on the battlements or at the various military stations in the city. Instead of a city, in fact, Athens was reduced to the condition of something like a military poat. 2 Moreover, the rich citizens of the state, who 1 Thucyd. viii, 4. About the extensive ruin caused by the Lacedaemo- nians to the olive-grounds in Attica, see Lysias. Or. vii, De Olea SacrS, sects. 6, 7. An inscription preserved in M. Boeckh's Corp. Inscr. (part ii, No. 93, p 132), gives some hint hoy landlords and tenants met this inevitable damage froKL the hands of the invaders. The deme JExoneis lets a farm to a cer- i:in tenant for forty years, at a fixed rent of one hundred and forty drachmae ; but if an invading enemy shall drive him out or injure his farm, the dcme ID f " receive one half of the year's produce, in place of the year's
rent s Thucyd. vii, 28, 29.
