Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/176

 154 HISTORY OF GREECE. not to hazard a battle with the invaders was now asceilained, About the end of March, or beginning of April, the entire Peloponnesian force two-thirds from each confederate city, as before was assembled under the command of Archidamus, and marched into Attica. This time they carried the work of sys tematic destruction, not merely over the Thriasian plain and the plain immediately near to Athens, as before ; but also to the more southerly portions of Attica, down even as far as the mines of Laurium. They traversed and ravaged both the eastern and the western coast, remaining not less than forty days in the country. They found the territory deserted as before, all the population having retired within the walls. 1 O In regard to this second invasion, Perikles recommended the same defensive policy as he had applied to the first ; and, appar-i entiy, the citizens had now come to acquiesce in it, if not willing ly, at least with a full conviction of its necessity. But a new visitation had now occurred, diverting their attention from the invader, though enormously aggravating their sufferings. A few days after Archidamus emrred Attica, a pestilence, or epidemic sickness, broke out unexpectedly at Athens. It appears that this terrific disorder had been raging for some time throughout the regions round the Mediterranean; having begun, as was believed, in ^Ethiopia, thence passing into Egypt and Libya, and overrunning a considerable portion of Asia under the Persian government : about sixteen years before, too, there had been a similar calamity in Rome and in various parts of Italy. Recently, it had been felt in Lemnos and some other islands of the ^gean, yet seemingly not with such intensity as to excite much notice generally in the Grecian world : at length it passed to Athens, and first showed itself in the Peirams. The progress of the disease was as rapid and destructive as its appearance had been sudden ; whilst the extraordinary accumula- tion of people within the city and long walls, in consequence of the presence of the invaders in the country, was but too favorable to every form of contagion. Families crowded together in close cabins and places of temporary shelter, 2 throughout a city constructed, 1 Thucyd. ii, 47-55. Thucyd. ii, 52 ; Diodor. xii, 45 ; Plutarch : Terikles, c. .34. It is to be