women
were all made slaves. The children and the 220 were all made one with
the Athenians.

Athens was in a piteous state from the sickness, which had cut off hosts
of people of all ranks. It lasted seven or nine days in each, and seems
to have been a malignant fever. Pericles lost his eldest son, his
sister, and almost all his dearest friends in it; but still he went about
calm, grave, and resolute, keeping up the hopes and patience of the
Athenians. Then his youngest and last son died of the same sickness, and
when the time came for placing the funeral garland on his head, Pericles
broke down, and wept and sobbed aloud. Shortly after, he fell sick
himself, and lingered much longer than was usual with sufferers from the
plague. Once, when his friends came in, he showed them a charm which the
women had hung round his neck, and, smiling, asked them whether his
enduring such folly did not show that he must be very ill indeed. Soon
after, when he was sinking away, and they thought him insensible, they
began to talk of the noble deeds he had done, his speeches, his wisdom
and learning, and his buildings: "he had found Athens of brick," they
said, "and had left her of marble." Suddenly the sick man raised himself
in his bed, and said, "I wonder you praise these things in me. They were
as much owing to fortune as to anything else; and yet you leave out what
is my special honour, namely, that I never caused any fellow-citizen to
put on mourning." So died this great man, in 429, the third year of the
Peloponnesian war.

[Picture: Decorative chapter heading]

CHAP. XX.--THE EXPEDITION TO SICILY. B.C. 415-413.

The Peloponnesian war went on much in the same way for some years after
the death of Pericles. There was no such great man left in Athens.
Socrates, the wise and deep-thinking philosopher, did not attend to state
affairs more than was his duty as a citizen; and the leading man for some
years was Nikias. He was an honest, upright man, but not clever, and
afraid of everything new, so that he was not the person to help in time
of strange dangers.

There was a youth growing up, however, of great ability. His name was
Alkibiades. He was of high and noble family, but he had lost his parents
very young, and Pericles had been his guardian, taking great care of his
property, so that he was exceedingly rich. He was very beautiful in
person, and that was thought of greatly at Athens, th