and removed thence all the women and other inhabitants incapable of taking a part in its defence. War was now fairly kindled. All Greece looked on in suspense as its two leading cities were about to engage in a strife of which no man could foresee the end; but the youth, with which both Athens and Peloponnesus then abounded, having had no experience of the bitter calamities of war, rushed into it with ardour. Every city, nay, almost every individual, seemed desirous of taking a part in it; most of them, however, from a feeling of hatred against Athens, and with a desire either of avoiding or of being relieved from her yoke. The predictions of soothsayers and oracles were heard on all sides, whilst natural portents were eagerly inquired after and interpreted. A recent earthquake in Delos, which had never before experienced such a calamity, seemed to foreshadow the approaching struggle, and to form a fitting introduction to a period which was to be marked not only by the usual horrors of war, but by the calamities of earthquakes, drought, famine, and pestilence.

§ 12. The nature of the preparations and the amount of forces on both sides were well calculated to excite these apprehensions. On the side of Sparta was ranged the whole of Peloponnesusexcept Argos and Achaia,-together with the Megarians, Bootians, Phocians, Opuntian Locrians, Ambraciots, Leucadians, and Anactorians. The force collected from these tribes consisted chiefly of hoplites, or heavy-armed foot-soldiers; but Boeotia, Phocis, and Locris also supplied some excellent cavalry. A good navy was the great deficiency on the side of the Peloponnesians, though Corinth and several other cities furnished ships. with the assistance of the Dorian cities in Italy and Sicily, they hoped to collect a fleet of 500 triremes; and they even designed to apply to the Persian king, and thus bring a Phoenician fleet again to act against Athens.

Yet

The allies of Athens, with the exception of the Thessalians, Acarnanians, Messenians at Naupactus, and Platæans, were all insular, and consisted of the Chians, Lesbians, Corcyræans, and Zacynthians, and shortly afterwards of the Cephallenians. To these must be added her tributary towns on the coast of Thrace and Asia Minor, together with all the islands north of Crete, except Melos and Thera. The resources at Athens immediately available were very great. They consisted of 300 triremes ready for active service, 1200 cavalry, 1600 bowmen, and 29,000 hoplites, for the most part Athenian citizens. Of these, 13,000 formed the flower of the army, whilst the rest were employed in garrison duty in Athens and the ports, and in the defence of the long walls. In the treasury of the Acropolis was the large sum

of 6000 talents, or about 1,400,000l. sterling, in coined silver. This reserve had at one time amounted to 9700 talents, but had been reduced to the sum stated by the architectural improvements in Athens, and by the siege of Potidea. The plate and votive offerings in the temples, available in case of urgent need, were estimated at nearly 1000 talents of silver. Besides these resources, Athens had also the annual tribute of her subjects.

§ 13. Such were the forces of the two contending cities. Immediately after the attempted surprise of Platea, the Lacedæmonians issued orders to their allies to send two-thirds of their disposable troops at once to the isthmus of Corinth, where they were to assemble by a day named, for the purpose of invading Attica. At the appointed time, the Spartan king Archidamus, the commander-in-chief of the expedition, reviewed the assembled host, and addressed a few words of advice and exhortation to the principal officers. Archidamus still cherished hopes that the Athenians would yield, when they saw the hostile army ready to enter Attica, and accordingly he sent forwards Melesippus to announce the impending invasion. But, at the instance of Pericles, the assembly had adopted a resolution to receive neither envoy nor herald; and Melesippus was escorted back without having been permitted to enter the city. As he parted from his escort at the Attic border, he could not help exclaiming" This day will be the beginning of many calamities to the Greeks."

ΘΟΥΚΥΔΙΔΗΣ

Bust of the historian Thucydides.

§1. The Peloponnesians invade Attica. §2. Athenian naval expeditions to Peloponnesus and Locris. § 3. The Athenians invade the Megarid. 4. Second invasion of Attica. Plague at Athens. $5. Unpopularity of Pericles. He is accused of malversation. § 6. His domestic misfortunes. Death. Character. §7. The Lacedæmonians ravage Attica. Their naval operations. §8. Surrender of Potidea. 9. The Lacedæmonians besiege Platea. §10. Part of the garrison escape. § 11. Surrender of the town. Trial and execution of the garrison.

§ 1. ARCHIDAMUS had entered upon the war with reluctance, and he now prosecuted it without vigour. He still clung to the idea that the Athenians would ultimately incline to peace, and he did all he could to promote so desirable a result. The enormous force which he was leading against them was, indeed, well calculated to test their firmness. It consisted, according to the lowest estimate, of 60,000 men, whilst some writers raise the number to 100,000; and the greater part of them were animated with a bitter hatred of Athens, and with a lively desire of revenge. Archidamus having lingered as long as he could at the isthmus, marched slowly forwards after the return of Melesippus, and taking a circuitous road, crossed the Attic border. Having wasted several days in an unsuccessful attack upon the frontier fortress of Enoé, and not having received, as he expected, any

from the Athenians, he proceeded towards Eleusis and the Thriasian plain, where he arrived about the middle of June in B.C. 431.

message

Meanwhile, Pericles had instructed the inhabitants of Attica to secure themselves and their property within the walls of Athens. They obeyed his injunctions with reluctance, for the Attic population had from the earliest times been strongly attached to a rural life. But the circumstances admitted of no alternative. From all quarters they might be seen hurrying towards the capital with their families and goods; whilst the cattle were for the most part conveyed to Euboea, or some other of the adjoining islands. Athens now became inconveniently crowded. Every vacant spot in the city or in Piræus, even those which belonged to the temples, were occupied by the encampments of the fugitives. The Acropolis, indeed, was preserved from this profane invasion; but the ground immediately under it, called the Pelasgicon, which, in obedience to an ancient oracle, had hitherto been suffered to remain unoccupied, was now brought into use. The towers and recesses of the city walls were converted into dwellings; whilst huts, tents, and even casks were placed under the long walls to answer the same purpose.

Archidamus, after ravaging the fertile Thriasian plain, in which he was but feebly opposed by a body of Athenian cavalry, proceeded to Acharnæ, one of the largest and most flourishing of the Attic boroughs, situated only about seven miles from Athens. Here he encamped on a rising ground within sight of the metropolis, and began to lay waste the country around, expecting probably by that means to provoke the Athenians to battle. But in this he was disappointed. The Athenians, indeed, and especially the Acharnians now within the walls, who had contributed no fewer than 3000 Hoplites to the army, were excited to the highest pitch of exasperation at beholding their houses, their ripening crops, their fruitful vineyards and orchards destroyed before their very eyes. Little groups might be seen gathering together in the streets angrily discussing the question of an attack, quoting oracles and prophecies which assured them of success, and indignantly denouncing Pericles as a traitor and a coward for not leading them out to battle. Among the leaders of these attacks upon Pericles, Cleon, the future demagogue, now first rising into public notice, was conspicuous. It required all the firmness of Pericles to stem the torrent of public indignation. He had resolved not to venture an engagement in the open field, and steadily refused in the present excited state of the public mind to call an assembly of the

people, in which no doubt some desperate resolution would have been adopted. In order, however, to divert in some degree the popular clamour, he permitted the Athenian and Thessalian cavalry to make sallies for the purpose of harassing the plundering parties of the enemy and of protecting as much as possible the lands adjacent to the city.

§2. But whilst Pericles thus abandoned the Attic territory to the enemy, he was taking active measures to retaliate on the Peloponnesus itself the sufferings inflicted on the Athenians. For this purpose an Athenian fleet of 100 triremes, strengthened by 50 Corcyræan ships, as well as by some from the other allies, sailed round Peloponnesus, and disembarking troops at various points, caused considerable damage. This expedition penetrated as far northwards as the coast of Acarnania, where the Corinthian settlement of Sollium and the town of Astacus were taken, whilst the island of Cephallenia, which voluntarily submitted, was enrolled among the allies of Athens.

Meanwhile a smaller fleet of thirty triremes had been despatched to the coast of Locris, where the towns of Thronium and Alopé were taken and sacked, and a naval station established at the small uninhabited island of Atalanta, in order to coerce the Locrian privateers who infested Euboea. The naval operations of the year were concluded by the total expulsion of the Æginetans from their island. The situation of Ægina rendered it of the highest importance as a maritime station; and the Athenians were, moreover, incensed against the inhabitants for the part they had taken in exciting the war. The whole of the population was transported to the coast of Peloponnesus, where the Spartans allowed them to occupy the town and district of Thyrea; and their island was portioned out among a body of Athenian cleruchs.

§3. Archidamus evacuated Attica towards the end of July, by the route of Oropus and Boeotia; after which his army was disbanded. The Athenians availed themselves of his departure to wreak their vengeance on the Megarians. Towards the end of September, Pericles, at the head of 13,000 Hoplites, and a large force of light-armed troops, marched into the Megarid, which he ravaged up to the very gates of the city. The Athenians repeated the same ravages once, and sometimes twice every year whilst the war lasted. In the course of this year the Athenians also formed an alliance with Sitalces, king of the Odrysian Thracians, whose assistance promised to be of use to them in reducing Potidæa and the revolted Chalcidian towns.

Such were the results of the first campaign. From the method in which the war was conducted it had become pretty