After ravaging the plain, they encamped
at Decelea, fourteen miles north of Athens, and here they established
a fortified post, which was garrisoned by contingents of the
Peloponnesian army, serving in regular order. Once more Alcibiades had
cause to exult in the success of his malignant counsels, which had
sent Gylippus to Syracuse, and had now planted this root of bitter
mischief on the very soil of Attica.
While the allies were thus engaged at Decelea, a considerable body of
troops had embarked at Taenarum and at Corinth, and sailed to take
part in the defence of Syracuse. In Greece, all the old enemies of
Athens were arming against her, and beyond the sea her prospects grew
darker and darker every day. Yet nothing, it seemed, could break the
spell of fatal delusion which rested on the doomed city. While Attica
lay in the grip of the enemy, a fleet of sixty-five triremes, carrying
a great military force, weighed anchor from Peiraeus, and steered its
course, under the command of Demosthenes, for Sicily.
VIII
We must now return to Syracuse, where fortune was preparing a new blow
for the ill-fated Athenian army. Gylippus came back from his mission
at the beginning of spring, bringing with him the reinforcements which
he had gathered from various parts of Sicily.
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