History of the Peloponnesian War

There came also to Athens this same summer, to serve as targeteers, a body of Thracians who carry swords, of the tribe of the Dii, thirteen hundred in number, who were to have sailed to Sicily with Demosthenes;

but as they had come too late, the Athenians determined to send them back again to Thrace, the country they had come from, as it seemed too expensive to keep them for the war carried on from Decelea. since each of them received a drachma a day.

For since Decelea had been first fortified by the whole Peloponnesian army during this summer, and afterwards was occupied for the annoyance of the country by garrisons coming from the states at successive periods, it greatly injured the Athenians, and was amongst the principal things that ruined their interests, both by the destruction of property and the loss of men.