to our times. Everything belonging to the
Athenians was at this time full of simple, manly grace and beauty, and in
both body and mind they were trying to work up to the greatest perfection
they could devise, without any aid outside themselves to help them.

But they had come to the very crown of their glory. When a war arose
between the Corinthians and the Corcyrans, who inhabited the isle now
called Corfu, the Corcyrans asked to be made allies of Athens, and a
fleet was sent to help them; and as the Corinthians held with Sparta,
this brought on a great war between Athens and Sparta, which was called
the Peloponnesian war, and lasted thirty years. It was really to decide
which of the two great cities should be chief, and both were equally
determined.

As Attica had borders open to the enemy, Pericles advised all the people
in the country to move into the town. They sent their flocks into the
isle of Euboea, brought their other goods with them, and left their
beautiful farms and gardens to be ravaged by the enemy; while the crowd
found dwellings in a place under the west side of the Acropolis rock,
which had hitherto been left empty, because an oracle declared it "better
untrodden." Such numbers coming within the walls could not be healthy,
and a deadly plague began to prevail, which did Athens as much harm as
the war. In the meantime, Pericles, who was always cautious, persuaded
the people to be patient, and not to risk battles by land, where the
Spartans fought as well as they did, whereas nobody was their equal by
sea; and as their fleet and all their many isles could save them from
hunger, they could wear out their enemies, and be fresh themselves; but
it was hard to have plague within and Spartans wasting their homes and
fields without. Brave little Plataea, too, was closely besieged. All
the useless persons had been sent to Athens, and there were only 400
Plataean and 80 Athenian men in it, and 110 women to wait on them; and
the Spartans blockaded these, and tried to starve them out, until, after
more than a year of famine, 220 of them scrambled over the walls on a
dark, wet night, cut their way through the Spartan camp, and safely
reached Athens. The other 200 had thought the attempt so desperate, that
they sent in the morning to beg leave to bury the corpses of their
comrades; but they then heard that only one man had fallen. They held
out a few months longer, and then were all put to death, while the