flocking by thousands into the city. A constant stream of waggons
passed along the roads, loaded with furniture, household utensils, and
even the woodwork of the farm-buildings; and many a little group of
women, children, and servants set out on that sorrowful journey,
leaving their fields, their gardens, and their vineyards, to be
trampled down and laid waste by the ruthless invader. Athens, indeed,
was the common mother of them all, their glory, their strength, and
their pride; for since the days of Theseus the scattered rural
communities of Attica had been united under the Aegis of Athene, and
acknowledged Athens as the head and centre of their civic life. But a
large proportion of the Athenian citizens still continued to reside in
the country, and all their dearest associations were connected with
the little spot of earth where they and their fathers were born. Here
were the graves of their ancestors, and the temples of the heroes who
were the guardian spirits of each little aggregate of families. It was
therefore with bitter and resentful feelings that they left these
happy scenes behind them, and turned their steps towards the gates of
the city, through which many of them were never to pass again. For all
of them it was a grievous change from the free and careless life of
the country-side to the confined space, polluted air, and jostling
multitudes of the town, now crowded to overflowing. Some few found
shelter in the houses of friends or relations; but by far the greater
number were obliged to encamp in the open spaces of the city, in the
precincts of temples, or in the narrow room between the Long Walls.
Even a place beneath the Acropolis, called the Pelasgic Field, was now
covered with the huts of the immigrants, though an ancient oracle had
forbidden its occupation under a curse. From day to day new crowds
kept flocking in, and the later comers were obliged to take up their
dwelling in Peiraeus, which was soon almost as much overcrowded as the
upper city.