resolution
remained. The walls had been strengthened; their defenders could hold
out while any food was left; not until men actually began to die of
hunger did they ask for peace.

The envoys sent to Sparta were refused a hearing. Athens wished to
preserve her walls. Sparta sent word that there could be no peace until
the Long Walls were levelled with the earth. These terms Athens proudly
refused. Suffering and privation went on.

For three months longer the siege continued. Though famine dwelt within
every house, and numbers died of starvation, the Athenians held out with
heroic endurance, and refused to surrender on humiliating terms. But
there could be only one end. Where famine commands man must obey. Peace
must be had at any price, or death would end all, and an envoy was sent
out with power to make peace on any terms he could obtain.

It was pitiable that glorious Athens should be brought to this sad pass.
She was so cordially hated by many of the states of Greece that they
voted for her annihilation, demanding that the entire population should
be sold as slaves, and the city and the very name of Athens be utterly
swept from the earth.

At this dread moment the greatest foe of Athens became almost her only
friend. Sparta declared that she would never consent to such a fate for
the city which had been the savior of Greece in the Persian war. In the
end peace was offered on the following terms: The Long Walls and the
defences of Piraeus should be destroyed; the Athenians should give up all
foreign possessions and confine themselves to Attica; they should
surrender all their ships-of-war; they should admit all their exiles;
they should become allies of Sparta, be friends of her friends and foes
of her foes, and follow her leadership on sea and land.

When the envoy, bearing this ultimatum, returned to Athens, a pitiable
spectacle met his eyes. A despairing crowd faced him with beseeching
eyes, in terror lest he brought only a message of death or despair.
Thousands there were who could not meet him, victims of the increasing
famine. Peace at any price had become a valued boon. Nevertheless, when
the terms were read in the assembly, there were those there who would
have refused them, and who preferred death by starvation to such
disgrace. The great majority, however, voted to accept them, and word
was sent to Lysander that Athens yielded to the inevitable.

And now into the harbor of the Piraeus sailed the trium