he whole
bold band had escaped.

Happy had it been for the remaining garrison had they also fled, even at
the risk of death. With the provisions left they held out till the next
summer, when they were forced to yield. In the end, after the form of a
trial, they were all slaughtered by their foes, and the city itself was
razed to the ground by its Theban enemies, only the Heraeum, or temple of
Here, being left. Such was the fate of a city to which eternal
sacredness had been pledged.

_HOW THE LONG WALLS WENT DOWN._

The retreat of the Persians from Athens left that city without a wall or
a home. On the return of the Athenians, and the rebuilding of their
ruined homes, a new wall became a necessity, and, under the wise advice
of Themistocles, the citizens determined that the new wall should be
much larger in circuit than the old,--wide enough to hold all Attica in
case of war.

[Illustration: PIRAEUS, THE PORT OF ATHENS.]

But no sooner was this begun than a protest arose from rival states. The
Spartans in particular raised such a clamor on the subject that
Themistocles went to that city and denied that he was fortifying Athens.
If they did not believe him, they might send there and see. They did so,
and the Spartan ambassadors, on arriving there, found the walls
completed and themselves held as hostages for the safe return of
Themistocles. Not only Athens was thus fortified, but a still stronger
wall was built around Piraeus, the port, four miles away.

Years afterwards, when Athens was in a position to defy the protest of
Sparta, her famous Long Walls were built, extending from the city to the
port, and forming a great artery through which the food and products
brought in ships from distant lands could flow to the city from the sea,
in defiance of foes. These walls it was that enabled Athens to survive
and flourish when all the soil of Attica lay in the hands of the Spartan
enemy. But the time came when these walls were to fall, and Athens to
lie helpless in the hands of her mortal foe.

The Peloponnesian war was full of incident, victories and defeats,
marches and countermarches, making and breaking of truces, loss of
provinces and fleets, triumphs of one side and the other, and still the
years rolled on, and neither party became supreme. Athens had its
ill-advisers, who kept it at war when it could have won far more by
concluding peace, and who induced it to forget the advice of Pericles
and make war