advised all the
people to come into the city, and take refuge behind the mighty walls,
while the fleet carried on the war by sea.

This advice was followed. All the farmers left their fields, and crowded
into Athens. When the Spartans came into Attica, they found the farms
and villages deserted; but from the top of the Acropolis the people
could see the enemy burn down their empty dwellings and destroy the
harvests in their fields.

In the mean while the Athenian fleet had sailed out of the Piraeus, and
had gone down into the Peloponnesus, where the troops landed from time
to time, striking terror into the hearts of the inhabitants, and causing
much damage.

The Spartans also had a fleet; but it was so much smaller than that of
the Athenians, that it could not offer any very great resistance. Still
the time came when a battle was to take place between the vessels of the
two cities.

It happened on a day when there was to be an eclipse of the sun. Now,
you know that this is a very simple and natural thing. An eclipse of the
sun is a darkening of its surface, which occurs whenever the moon passes
between it and the earth.

As the moon is a very large and solid body, we cannot see either through
or around it, and for a few minutes while it is directly between us and
the sun it entirely hides the latter from our sight. Pericles, who had
so often talked with Anaxagoras and the other learned men of his day,
knew what an eclipse was, and had even been told that one would soon
take place. He was therefore quite ready for it, warned his soldiers
that it was coming, and illustrated his meaning by flinging his cloak
over the head of his pilot.

"Can you see the sun now?" he asked.--"Why, no! master, of course not!"
replied the man. "Your thick cloak is between me and the sun; how could
I see through it?"--"Well, neither can you see through the moon, then,"
replied Pericles.

His men, thus warned, showed no fear of the eclipse; but the Spartans,
who did not trouble themselves greatly with learning, were terrified.
They imagined that the darkening of the sun at midday was the sign of
some coming misfortune, and hardly dared to fight against the Athenians.

Thanks to this superstitious fear, Pericles laid waste the fields of the
Peloponnesus, and came back to Athens in triumph; for, although much
damage had been done to the enemy, the Athenians had lost only a few
men. These were buried with great honors. Pericles himself p