selves nor others. The disorder being new, the
physicians could find no remedy in the resources of their art. Despair
now began to take possession of the Athenians. Some suspected that the
Peloponnesians had poisoned the wells; others attributed the pestilence
to the anger of Apollo. A dreadful state of moral dissolution
followed. The sick were seized with unconquerable despondency; whilst
a great part of the population who had hitherto escaped the disorder,
expecting soon to be attacked in turn, abandoned themselves to all
manner of excess, debauchery, and crime. The numbers carried off by
the pestilence can hardly be estimated at less than a fourth of the
whole population.

Oppressed at once by war and pestilence, their lands desolated, their
homes filled with mourning, it is not surprising that the Athenians
were seized with rage and despair, or that they vented their anger on
Pericles, whom they deemed the author of their misfortunes. But that
statesman still adhered to his plans with unshaken firmness. Though
the Lacedaemonians were in Attica, though the plague had already seized
on Athens, he was vigorously pushing his schemes of offensive
operations. A foreign expedition might not only divert the popular
mind but would prove beneficial by relieving the crowded city of part
of its population; and accordingly a fleet was fitted out, of which
Pericles himself took the command, and which committed devastations
upon various parts of the Peloponnesian coast. But, upon returning
from this expedition, Pericles found the public feeling more
exasperated than before. Envoys had even been despatched to Sparta to
sue for peace, but had been dismissed without a hearing; a
disappointment which had rendered the populace still more furious.
Pericles now found it necessary to call a public assembly in order to
vindicate his conduct, and to encourage the desponding citizens to
persevere. But though he succeeded in persuading them to prosecute the
war with vigour; they still continued to nourish their feelings of
hatred against the great statesman. His political enemies, of whom
Cleon was the chief, took advantage of this state of the public mind to
bring against him a charge of peculation. The main object of this
accusation was to incapacitate him for the office of Strategus, or
general. [The Strategi, or Generals, were ten in number, elected
annually, and were intrusted not only with the command on military
expediti