ific form upon that devoted city.

The seeds of death found there fertile soil. Families were crowded
together in close cabins and temporary shelters, to which they had been
driven in multitudes from their ravaged fields. The plague first
appeared in mid-April in the Piraeus,--brought, perhaps, by
merchant-ships,--but soon spread to Athens, and as the heat of summer
came on the inhabitants of that thronged city fell victims to it in
appalling multitudes.

The plague, they called it. The disease seems to have been something
like the small-pox, though not quite the same. Its victims were seized
suddenly, suffered the greatest agonies, and most of them died on the
seventh or the ninth day. Even when the patients recovered, some had
lost their memory, others the use of their eyes, hands, feet, or some
other member of the body. No remedy could be found. The physicians died
as rapidly as their patients. As for the charms and incantations which
many used, we can scarcely imagine that they saved any lives. Some said
that their enemies had poisoned the water-cisterns, others that the gods
were angry, and vain processions were made to the temples, to implore
the mercy of the deities.

When nothing availed to stay the pestilence, Athens fell into deep
despondency and despair. The sick lost courage, and lay down inertly to
await death. Those who waited on the sick were themselves stricken
down, and so great grew the terror that the patients were deserted and
left to die alone. Fortunately the disease rarely attacked any one
twice, and those who had been sick and recovered became the only nurses
of the new victims of the disease.

So dread became the pestilence that the dead and the dying lay
everywhere, in houses and streets, and even in the temples; half-dead
sufferers gathered around the springs, tortured by violent thirst; the
very dogs that meddled with the corpses died of the disease; vultures
and other carrion birds avoided the city as if by instinct. Many bodies
were burnt or buried with unseemly haste, many doubtless left to fester
where they lay. Misery, terror, despair, overwhelmed all within the
walls, while the foe without drew back in equal terror, lest the
pestilence should leap the walls and assail them in their camps.

Nor have we yet told all. Other evils followed that of the plague. Law
was forgotten, morality ignored. Men hesitated not at crime or the
indulgence of evil passions, having no fear of punishment