B. C. 430.
163. The next spring, with a new Spartan invasion, brought a still greater calamity to the Athenians. The plague, originating in Ethiopia, had traveled along the Asiatic coasts of the Mediterranean until it reached their city, where the crowded condition of the people made it spread with frightful rapidity. A terror seized the populace, some of whom believed that their enemies had poisoned the wells, while a greater number ascribed the pestilence to the wrath of Apollo, who was the especial protector of the Dorian race.
164. In their passion of despair the Athenians turned against Pericles, whose cautious policy they considered as the cause of their misfortunes. Though still refusing battle, which, with the reduced numbers and exhausted spirit of the army, would have been almost certain defeat, he actively pushed his operations against the Peloponnesus. To relieve the crowded city of its mischievous elements, he fitted out a fleet and led it in person to ravage the enemy’s coasts. On his return he found the opposition stronger than ever, and an embassy had even been sent to Sparta to sue for peace. The suit had been contemptuously rejected, and the rage of the Athenians was only increased. Pericles persuaded them to persevere in the war, but his eloquence was unavailing to silence the fury of his personal enemies. By the influence of Cleon, his chief opponent, he was even accused of embezzling the public funds, and was fined to a large amount.
B. C. 429.
165. But the life and adversities of the great statesman were alike near their end. The plague had robbed him in of his nearest relatives. A lingering fever, following an attack of the pestilence, terminated his life. As he lay, seemingly unconscious, the friends surrounding his death-bed were rehearsing his great deeds, when the dying man interrupted them, saying, “All that you are praising was either the result of good fortune, or, in any case, common to me with many other leaders. What I chiefly pride myself upon is, that no Athenian has ever mourned on my account.”
B. C. 430.
166. The second Lacedæmonian foray was more destructive than the first, for the ravages extended over all Attica, even to the silver mines of Laurium. The fleet of the Peloponnesians destroyed the fisheries and commerce of Athens, and devastated the island of Zacynthus. During the following winter Potidæa surrendered, after a blockade of two years, and was occupied by a thousand Athenian colonists.
B. C. 429.
The third campaign of the Spartans was directed against Platæa. On the approach of Archidamus, the Platæans sent a solemn remonstrance, reminding him of the oath which Pausanias had sworn on the evening of their great battle, making Platæa forever sacred from invasion. The king replied that the Platæans, too, were bound by oath to labor for the independence of every Grecian state. He reminded them of their heinous crime in the slaughter of the Theban prisoners, but promised that, if they would abandon the cause of Athens and remain neutral during the war, their privileges should be respected. The Platæans refused to forsake their ancient ally, and the siege of their city began.