re of Greek interpolitical life than all other Greek writers
put together." No historian has been greater than he, not only in
dignity of language, but in calmness of judgment, in intellectual
force, and in breadth and acuteness of observation.]

[Footnote 19: From Book I of the "History of the Peloponnesian War."
Translated by Benjamin Jowett.]

[Footnote 20: The Peloponnesians were the people of the peninsula
which forms the southern part of Greece, and which is now known as
Morea. In ancient times this territory was called the Peloponnesus.
Its people comprized the inhabitants of several political domains
called Achaia, Sicyonia, Corinthia, Argolis, Arcadia, Laconia,
Messenia, and Elis. Laconia was otherwise, and quite anciently, known
as Lacedaemon, its capital being the city of Sparta.]

[Footnote 21: Potidaea, the modern Pinaka, had revolted from Athens in
432 B.C., but did not capitulate until the end of the second year of
the Peloponnesian war. It was a rich and flourishing town, originally
Dorian, but colonized later from Corinth. During one of the Eastern
invasions of Greece, it fell into Persian hands.]

[Footnote 22: These walls connected Athens with its port, the Piraeus,
and were each about five miles long. They ran parallel and were
separated from each other by about 500 feet of space. This intervening
land was used for a carriage road, on either side of which were
houses. Thus was formed a continuous walled street from Athens to the
sea, so that communication in case of war was made secure.]

[Footnote 23: The battle of Marathon was fought in September, 490. It
ended the attempts of Darius to subdue Greece.]

[Footnote 24: The battle of Salamis took place in September, 480, and
was fought in waters lying between the Piraeus and the island of
Salamis. Themistocles commanded the Greeks. The Persian ships were
practically annihilated. Byron's lines on this battle, in his poem
"The Isles of Greece," will be recalled.]

II

THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS[26] (430--425 B.C.)

They [the enemy] had not been there [in Attica] many days when the
plague broke out at Athens for the first time. A similar disorder is
said to have previously smitten many places, particularly Lemnos;[27]
but there is no record of such a pestilence occurring elsewhere, or of
so great a destruction of human life. For a while physicians, in
ignorance of the nature of the disease, sought to apply remedies; but
it was in vain, and t