Decelea

And for that purpose you must fortify Decelea, in Attica;

To have each of these things done with greater speed and spirit rests with you, Lacedaemonians;

So that they now turned their thoughts to the fortification of Decelea, and to immediately sending some assistance to the Sicilians.

During these days also, and while Thrasyllus was in Athens, Agis made a raid from Decelea up to the very walls of the city;

They were all sent off to Athens, and as they were disembarking at Piraeus, Coeratadas slipped away in the crowd and made his escape to Decelea.

During the course of it the Syracusan prisoners, who were immured in stone quarries in Piraeus, dug through the rock and made their escape by night, most of them to Decelea and the rest to Megara.

Lycon, the Heracleote, men of the jury, of whom the plaintiff himself makes mention, was a customer of my father’s bank like the other merchants, a guest friend of Aristonoüs of Decelea and Archebiades of Lamptrae, and a man of prudence.

For that deed the Deceleans have always had and still have freedom at Sparta from all dues and chief places at feasts.

Of the Athenians, Sophanes son of Eutychides is said to have won renown, a man from the town of Decelea, whose people once did a deed that was of eternal value, as the Athenians themselves say.

For in the past when the sons of Tyndarus were trying to recover Helen, after breaking into Attica with a great host, they turned the towns upside down because they did not know where Helen had been hidden, then (it is said) the Deceleans (and, as some say, Decelus himself, because he was angered by the pride of Theseus and feared for the whole land of Attica) revealed the whole matter to the sons …

but such an excess of insolence have my father’s enemies that they accuse him, who was exiled in so illegal a manner as if he had committed outrageous crimes, and try to ruin his reputation by saying that he caused the fortification of Decelea, and the revolt of the islands, and that he became the enemy’s counsellor.

For the one party regarded those who were in possession of the city as greater enemies than the Lacedaemonians and the other were making overtures to the Spartan forces in Decelea, judging that it was preferable to hand over their country to its enemies rather than to give a share in the rights of citizenship to those who were fighting for the city.

For they reached such a degree of neglect of their own possessions and of covetousness of the possessions of other states that when the Lacedaemonians had invaded our territory and the fortifications at Decelea had already been built, they manned triremes to send to Sicily and were not ashamed to permit their own country to be cut off and plundered by the enemy while dispatching an expedition agai …

Decree

Let the jury hear the other decree, clerk, relating to the men who withdrew to Decelea when the people were besieged by the Spartans, so that they will realize that the punishments inflicted by our ancestors on traitors were uniform and self-consistent.

It says that they condemned any who moved to Decelea in war-time and laid it down that those who were caught returning should be led by any Athenian who cared to do so to the Thesmothetae who should take them into custody and hand them over to the executioner.