Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/315

 FOUNDATION OF HERAKLEIA. 293 B.c 427, that the Athenians began operations on a small scale in Sicily ; probably contrary to the advice both of Nikias and Kleon, neither of them seemingly favorable to these distant undertakings. I reserve, however, the series of Athenian meas- ures in Sicily which afterwards became the turning-point of the fortunes of the state for a department by themselves. I shall take them up separately, and bring them down to the Athenian expedition against Syracuse, when I reach the date of that important event. During the autumn of the same year, the epidemic disorder, after having intermitted for some time, resumed its ravages at Athens, and continued for one whole year longer, to the sad ruin both of the strength and the comfort of the city. And it seems that this autumn, as well as the ensuing summer, were distin- guished by violent atmospheric and terrestrial disturbance. Nu- merous earthquakes were experienced at Athens, in Euboea, in Boeotia, especially near Orchomenus. Sudden waves of the sea and unexampled tides were also felt on the coast of Eubrea and Lokris, and the islands of Atalante and Peparethus ; the Athe- nian fort and one of the two guardships at Atalante were par- tially destroyed. The earthquakes produced one effect favorable to Athens ; they deterred the Lacedaemonians from invading At- tica. Agis, king of Sparta, had already reached the isthmus for that purpose ; but the repeated earthquakes were looked upon as an unfavorable portent, and the scheme was aban- doned. 1 These earthquakes, however, were not considered as calculated to deter the Lacedaemonians from the foundation of Herakleia, a new colony near the strait of Thermopylae. On this occasion, we hear of a branch of the Greek population not before men- tioned during the war. The coast immediately north of the strait of Thermopylae was occupied by the three subdivisions of the Malians, Paralii, Hieres, and Trarhinians. These lat- ter, immediately adjoining Mount CEta on its north side, as well as the Dorians, the little tribe properly so called, which was accounted the primitive hearth of the Dorians generally, who joined the same mountain-range on the south, were both of 1 Thucyd. iii, 87, 89, 90.