own words[1]. The temporary presence of the invading enemy had not hitherto hindered the Athenians from reaping the fruits of the soil; but now "they were deprived of their whole land"—including, of course, the mines at Laurium. "More than twenty thousand slaves had deserted to the enemy." All their sheep and oxen were lost. The whole number of adult male citizens was required for military duty on the walls or in the field, a necessity which would suspend the sitting of the law-courts and, as Alcibiades foretold, close that source of profit[2]. The expenses of the State were heavily increased, its revenues were perishing. Alcibiades might easily have foreseen the importance of occupying Deceleia. But the minute correspondence between the special results which he is made to predict and those which Thucydides relates in his own person indicates that the prophecy followed the event.
(III) 7. The Athenian speaker at Sparta in 432 B.C. says to the Spartans: "If you were to
- ↑ vii. 27—28. On the αὐτομολίαι of slaves, cf. viii. 40.
- ↑ The reference of Alcibiades in the words ὅσα . . . ἀπὸ τῶν δικαστηρίων νῦν ὠφελοῦνται is to the income which the State derived from court-fees of various kinds, especially the deposits (πρυτανεῖα) made by parties to a law-suit, as well as from pecuniary fines, confiscations, etc. Böckh (Publ. Econ. i. 461) understands the passage thus, following the scholiast. Meineke (Hermes iii. 359) and Madvig (Adv. i. 328) conjecture δεκατευτηρίων, "places where public tithes and taxes were taken"—objecting, as against the vulgate, that it does not appear why even a virtual state of siege should suspend the sitting of the law-courts. Thucydides, vii. 28 § 2, gives the plain answer—all the citizens were required for military duty.
