excitement, he sent out a body of horsemen to skirmish with the enemy,
and despatched a fleet of a hundred triremes to ravage the coasts of
Peloponnesus.

When the first invasion of Attica was over, two cities, which had been
foremost in stirring up war against Athens, were made to feel the full
weight of her resentment. The unhappy Aeginetans were expelled from
their island, and the land of Aegina was distributed among Athenian
citizens. And later in the same summer the Athenians marched in full
force into the territory of Megara, which was laid waste from end to
end. This proceeding, which afforded a pleasant summer excursion to
the Athenians, was repeated annually for the next seven years. The
banished Aeginetans found an asylum at Thyrea, a coast district of
eastern Peloponnesus, which was assigned to them by Sparta. And so the
first year of the war came to an end; for, except on extraordinary
occasions, no military operations were undertaken during the winter.




THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS

I

At the beginning of the next summer the Peloponnesians again entered
Attica, and resumed their work of devastation, destroying the young
crops, and wrecking whatever had been spared in the previous year.
Before they had been many days in Attica, a new and far more terrible
visitation came upon the Athenians, threatening them with total
extinction as a people. We have seen how the whole upper city, with