Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/258

142 THE PLAGUE AT POTIDAEA [ll was in the city, and likewise saw the burning of the dead. Still in this invasion the whole country was ravaged by them, and they remained about forty days, which was the longest stay they ever made. 58 In the same summer, Hagnon the son of Nicias, and Expcdiiion aqamsi Cleopompus the SOU of Cleinias, who rotidam. The plague were colleagucs of Periclcs in his breaks o.,t among the ^-^-^'^y^^ command, took the fleet which troops, aim the ran- -' forcements return to l^^ had employed and sailed forthwith Athens. against the Thracian Chalcidians and against Potidaea, which still held out. On their arrival they brought engines up to the walls, and tried every means of taking the town. But they did not succeed ; nor did the result by any means correspond to the magnitude of their armament; for thither too the plague came and made dreadful havoc among the Athenian troops. Even the soldiers who were previously there and had been in good health caught the infection from the forces under Ilagnon. But the army of Phormio"^ escaped ; for he and his sixteen hundred troops had left Chalcidice. And so Hagnon returned with his fleet to Athens, having lost by the plague out of four thousand hoplitcs a thousand and fifty men in about forty days. But the original armament ^ remained and prosecuted the siege. 59 After the second Peloponnesian invasion, now that ^, A,, ■ Attica had been once more ravaged, lite Athenians sue •^ ' for peace and are re- and the War and the plague together jcetcd. They turn upon Jay heavy upon the Athenians, a change Pericles. His defence. -u • • -i. --ri ui j ■' came over their spirit. Ihey blamed Pericles because he had persuaded them to go to war, declaring that he was the author of their troubles ; and they were anxious to come to terms with the Lacedae- monians. Accordingly envoys were despatched to Sparta, but the}' met with no success. And now, being completely at their wits' end, they turned upon Pericles. He saw Cp. i. 64 med. ^ Cp. i. 59, 61 init.