with perfect confidence confronted the destinies awaiting them
in the future." [Footnote: "The History of Greece," vol. iii.,
p. 66; by Dr. Ernst Curtius.]


THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS.

In the spring of 430 B.C. the Spartans again invaded Attica,
and the Athenians shut themselves up in Athens. But here the
plague, a calamity more dreadful than war, attacked them and
swept away multitudes. This plague, which not only devastated
Athens, but other Grecian cities also, is described at considerable
length, with a harrowing minuteness of detail, by the Latin poet
LUCRETIUS. His description is based upon the account given by
Thucydides. We give here only the beginning and the close of it:

A plague like this, a tempest big with fate,
Once ravaged Athens and her sad domains;
Unpeopled all the city, and her paths
Swept with destruction. For amid the realms
Begot of Egypt, many a mighty tract
Of ether traversed, many a flood o'erpassed,
At length here fixed it; o'er the hapless realm
Of Cecrops hovering, and the astonished race
Dooming by thousands to disease and death.

* * * * *

Thus seized the dread, unmitigated pest
Man after man, and day succeeding day,