r a district of
the city, which was divided into two parts, the Inner and Outer
Ceramicus. The former lay within the city walls, and included the
Agora. The Outer Ceramicus, which formed a handsome suburb on the
north-west of the city, was the burial-place of all persons honoured
with a public funeral. Through it ran the road to the gymnasium and
gardens of the Academy which were situated about a mile from the walls.
The Academy was the place where Plato and his disciples taught. On
each side of this road were monuments to illustrious Athenians,
especially those who had fallen in battle.

East of the city, and outside the walls, was the Lyceum, a gymnasium
dedicated to Apollo Lyceus, and celebrated as the place in which
Aristotle taught.

CHAPTER XI.

THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR.--FIRST PERIOD, FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE WAR
TO THE PEACE OF NICIAS, B.C. 431-421.

War was now fairly kindled. All Greece looked on in suspense as its
two leading cities were about to engage in a strife of which no man
could forsee the end; but the youth, with which both Athens and
Peloponnesus then abounded, having had no experience of the bitter
calamities of war, rushed into it with ardour. It was a war of
principles and races. Athens was a champion of democracy, Sparta of
aristocracy; Athens represented the Ionic tribes, Sparta the Dorian;
the former were fond of novelty, the latter were conservative and
stationary; Athens had the command of the sea, Sparta was stronger upon
land. On the side of Sparta was ranged the whole of Peloponnesus,
except Argos and Achaia, together with the Megarians, Boeotians,
Phocians, Opuntian Locrians, Ambraciots, Leucadians, and Anactorians.
The allies of Athens, with the exception of the Thessalians,
Acarnanians, Messenians at Naupactus, and Plataeans, were all insular,
and consisted of the Chians, Lesbians, Corcyraeans, and Zacynthians,
and shortly afterwards of the Cephallenians, To these must be added her
tributary towns on the coast of Thrace and Asia Minor, together with
all the islands north of Crete, except Melos and Thera.

The Peloponnesians commenced the war by an invasion of Attica, with a
large army, under the command of the Spartan King Archidamus (B.C.
431). Pericles had instructed the inhabitants of Attica to secure
themselves and their property within the walls of Athens. They obeyed
his injunctions with reluctance, for the Attic population had from the
earliest times been str