physicians hastened to the aid of the sufferers; and they were the first to fall victims to the plague. Friends and kinsfolk who tended the suffering caught and carried about the contagion, until all learnt to accept as their death-warrant the first sensations of sickness. Then followed scenes such as no Hellenic city had ever witnessed before. In the crowded space between the walls lay men, women, and children, some in a state of passive stupor, others racked with the fearful pains which attended the early stages of the disease, others whom an intolerable thirst had fevered into madness. In the midst of all these horrors there was but one alleviation. Those who had recovered from the plague were safe from a second attack; but we could not be over-severe in our condemnation, if after this escape they had abandoned themselves to an inert selfishness. Far from doing this, they exhibited a noble rivalry in kindly offices, thus showing that consciousness of good already attained may be a more powerful stimulus to well-doing than the desire of conquering a crushing evil.

For forty days Archidamos with his troops ravaged the soil of Attica; and although some would have it that he hastened home sooner than he would have done if Athens had been free from plague, still during the remainder of the war no Spartan army remained in the country so long. But even before he could reach the Paralian land, Perikles had a fleet of one hundred ships made ready for another expedition against the Peloponnesos. Returning to Athens, the men who during their voyage round the Peloponnesos had lost many of their number from the plague were dispatched under Hagnon and Kleopompos to aid in the reduction of Potidaia. The result was disastrous. The infection brought by these troops spread with terrific speed amongst the Athenians who had preceded them in besieging the place. In less than six weeks 1,500 died out of 4,000 hoplites, and Hagnon returned with his crippled force to Athens. In their misery the Athenians laid all their sufferings at the door of Perikles, who met the people with a more direct rebuke of their faint-heartedness and a more distinct assertion of his own services than any to which he had in more prosperous times resorted. To a certain extent he had foreseen this outburst of anger. He knew that the dwellers in the country would be sorely chafed by being compelled to exchange their pleasant homes for cramped and wretched huts within the city walls: but he had not foreseen

the terrible disease whose ravages were worse than those of hostile armies, and he could take no blame for this disaster unless they were ready to give him credit for every piece of unexpected good luck which might befall them during the war.

Encouraged by his words, the Athenians resolved to make no more proposals to the Spartans, and to carry on the war with vigour; but Thucydides adds that his enemies were still powerful enough to induce the people to fine him. Their irritation against him was not long continued. The plague had now laid its hand heavily on his house. His sister and his two sons Xanthippos and Paralos were dead. There remained only the son of Aspasia who bore his own name; and the people not only chose him again as one of their Strategoi, but allowed Perikles to inroll this surviving child amongst the number of Athenian citizens. Thus ended amid dark shadows the life of a man, the key-note of whose policy was the indispensable need of sweeping away all private interests, if these should clash with the interests of Athens in this great struggle. The resources of the state were not to be wasted or risked in enterprises which at best could tend only to the benefit of individuals, and enterprises to which the state was committed were not to be starved or mismanaged in order to further the purposes of factious politicians. Nothing can be more severely simple and emphatic than the few sentences in which Thucydides insists that on these two rocks the Athenians made shipwreck.

CHAPTER III.

THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR FROM THE CLOSE OF THE PUBLIC LIFE OF PERIKLES TO THE DESTRUCTION OF PLATAIA.

THE blockade of Potidaia had now lasted for nearly two years. The straits to which its inhabitants were reduced made it impossible for them to hold out longer; and a little more firmness on the part of the besiegers would have insured an unconditional surrender. Happily for the Potidaians the full extent of their sufferings was not known to the Athenian general Xenophon and his colleagues, and they were allowed to leave the place under a convention that the men should depart with one garment and the women with two, and a fixed sum of money to enable them to reach some refuge. The tidings of this surrender were re

ceived at Athens with very mingled feelings; and the more prudent Athenians felt specially indignant at the loss of so many captives who might have been sold to defray the costs of the siege. For a time Xenophon was in disgrace; but the property seized within the place made up in some measure for the money spent on the blockade, and Potidaia further furnished a home for the 1,000 Athenian settlers who were sent to occupy it.

Two invasions of Attica had failed thus far to bring about the end aimed at by Sparta and Corinth. At the beginning of the third year of the war (B.C. 429) the invading force was sent not into Attica but into the little strip of Plataian territory which even Spartan sentiment regarded as in some sense sacred ground. The Plataian heralds who were at once sent out to him bade him remember the oaths solemnly sworn after the rout of the Persians under Mardonios. In reply the Spartan king told them that he was come only to set them free. If the Plataians could not take part in the good work, they must remain neutral, and a promise of neutrality would be followed by the departure of the invaders. But neutrality as defined by Archidamos meant the reception of both sides as friends, and the Plataians felt that the gates of their city were thus practically thrown open to the Thebans, their worst enemies. To the fears thus expressed Archidamos replied by pledging himself to restore to the Plataians without loss or damage at the end of the war their houses, their lands, their fruit trees and all other property which might be numbered, if in the meantime the Plataians would leave them in trust to the Spartans, and themselves find a refuge elsewhere. The proposal was one with which under the circumstances it would be wise to close, and the Plataians were inclined to accept it. But without the advice of the Athenians they could do nothing; and the Athenians answered simply that they had never yet betrayed Plataia and that they would never abandon her to her enemies. On learning their decision Archidamos gave orders for surrounding the town with a stockade. But the attempts made to breach or undermine the walls were useless and as the summer wore on, orders were given, it is said, for the complete circumvallation of the city, a sufficient Spartan force being left to guard half the circle, while the Boiotians undertook to guard the other half.

During the preceding winter the Athenian general Phormion had been stationed at Naupaktos to block the entrance of the

Corinthian gulf. The events of the following year showed

that in him the Athenians had found the ablest of all their naval commanders. Aided by the wild tribes of the neighbouring country, the Ambrakiots undertook, with the help of an adequate Peloponnesian force, to reduce the whole of Akarnania. The execution of this plan was intrusted to the Spartan admiral Knemos, who managed to cross the gulf without the knowledge of Phormion. The main object of the expedition was the town of Stratos on the right bank of the Achelôos. The tidings of their approach at first struck terror into the Stratians who sent to Phormion an urgent message for aid. But that general answered that he dared not leave Naupaktos unguarded, and the Stratians made ready to defend themselves as best they might. Their enemies were moving in three parallel columns, so far separated from each other as often to be out of sight, the Leukadians and Anaktorians being on the right, the Peloponnesians and Ambrakiots on the left. These marched warily and in good order. The Chaonians, hurried on by their habitual impetuosity, thought of nothing but a headlong onset which should carry Stratos by storm. To the Stratians their disorderly haste suggested the idea of ambuscades to take their assailants in flank. The plan was crowned with success, and the Greeks saw nothing of their friends until they beheld them rushing back in wild confusion.

Meanwhile a far heavier disaster had befallen the reinforcement which should have reached Knemos from Corinth and other cities of the allies. The narrow strait barely one mile in width which forms the entrance to the Krissaian or Corinthian gulf is locked in by two promontories. At about equal distances from the northern Naze or Ness lay Naupaktos on the east and the little territory of Chalkis near the mouth of the river Euênos to the west. Hence it is obvious that a leader who wished to avoid a fleet stationed at any point between the Molykreian Rhion and Naupaktos would keep his ships on the southern coast of the gulf and having doubled the cape would strike from Patrai for Chalkis. This course, accordingly, the Corinthians took, in full assurance that with five-and-forty ships they needed to fear no attack from Phormion who had only twenty. The day was drawing to an end, and the Corinthians, to put their enemy off his guard, pretended to take up their station for the night off the Achaian shore, their intention being to steal across

the passage under cover of darkness. But Phormion was not to be thus cheated. The Corinthians had hoped that when they had come to anchor he also would fall back to his own ground; but Phormion kept the sea all night, and at break of day his triremes confronted the Corinthian ships which were then creeping across the gulf. The conditions of the conflict were precisely those which he could most desire. Soon after sunrise the breeze blows strongly from the gulf, and he knew that this alone would render impossible for the enemy the task of keeping a steady position which even in still water is full of difficulty for unskilful seamen. The Corinthians, confined by the manœuvres of Phormion within a narrowing space, were already in great confusion when the wind came down upon them and dashed their ships against each other. In the midst of this dreadful disorder Phormion gave the order for attack. What followed was not battle but rout. At every onset from an Athenian trireme a Peloponnesian ship went down. The few which were not taken or sunk fled to the Eleian docks at Kyllene. Indignant at an event which they could ascribe only to cowardice or sluggishness, the Spartans sent Brasidas with peremptory orders to Knemos to bring on a fresh engagement. Phormion on his side added to the dispatch announcing his success an earnest request for immediate reinforcements: but Perikles was now dying, and the Athenians seemed to think that they were doing rightly by sending this force first on an unimportant errand to Krete.

Phormion was thus left with his twenty triremes, while seventy-five Peloponnesian triremes watched him from the opposite promontory of Achaia. For six or seven days not a movement was made on either side. On the seventh or eighth day the Peloponnesian fleet began at daybreak to move to the northern coast of the gulf, headed by twenty of the swiftest and stoutest of their ships, which were to turn sharply round and pin the fleet of Phormion to the shore if, thinking that the movement was against Naupaktos, he should enter the gulf. Their plan was successful. Phormion felt that he dared not suffer so large a force to attack Naupaktos. But he had advanced only a little way within the gulf when the Peloponnesian fleet faced about, their vanguard hurrying to cut off retreat in the direction of Naupaktos, while the main body of the ships blocked escape to the west. So swift however were the Athe