Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/363

 86-89] RETURN OF THE PLAGUE 247 four thousand four hundred Athenian hoplites who were on the roll died, and also three hundred horsemen ; how many of the common people could never be ascertained. This too was the time when the frequent earthquakes occurred at Athens, in Euboea, and in Boeotia, especially at Orchomenos^ During the same winter the Athenians in Sicily and the 88 Rhegians made an expedition with Fruitless expedition thirty ships against the islands of against the Aeolian Aeolus, as they are called, which in '^^^"'^^• summer time cannot be attacked owing to the want of water. These islands belong to the Liparaeans, who are colonists of the Cnidians : they inhabit one of them, which is not large, and is called Lipara ; from this they go and cultivate the rest, Didyme, Strongyle, and Hiera. The inhabitants believe that the forge of Hephaestus is in Hiera, because the island sends up a blaze of fire in the night-time and clouds of smoke by day. The Aeolian islands lie off the territory of the Sicels and Messenians ; they were in alliance with Syracuse. The Athenians wasted the country, but finding that the inhabitants would not yield, sailed back to Rhegium. And so ended the winter, and with it the fifth year in the Peloponnesian War of which Thucydides wrote the history. In the ensuing summer the Peloponnesians and their 89 allies, under the command of Agis the The earthquakes con- q^q^^^' son of ArchidamUS, the Lacedae- ceived by Thucydides to • ' I • {• ^ ^r, tU^ liave been the cause of monian king, came as far as the ,/,, ^,,,,, ,^6 ««rf /o.. isthmus. They intended to invade of the sea at Orobiae in Attica, but were deterred from proceed- Euboea, and at Ata- ing by numerous earthquakes ^ and ""'^• no invasion took place in this year. About the time when these earthquakes prevailed, the sea at Orobiae in Euboea, retiring from what was then the line of coast and rising m a great wave, overflowed a part of the city ; and although » Cp. ch. 89, and i. 23 med. * Cp. ch. 87.