The two antagonists were fairly matched. The one was strong where the other was weak. Sparta, mainly a continental power, commanded all the Peloponnesian states except Argos and Achaea, besides some of the smaller states of central Greece. Athens, mainly a maritime power, ruled all the subject cities of the Aegean. The Spartans possessed the most formidable army then in the world, but lacked money and ships. The Athenians had a magnificent navy, an overflowing treasury, and a city impregnable to direct attack. It seemed, in fact, as if neither side could seriously injure the other. FIRST STAGE OF THE WAR, 431-421 B.C. The war began in 431 B.C. Its first stage was indecisive. The Athenians avoided a conflict in the open field with the stronger Peloponnesian army, which ravaged Attica. They were crippled almost at the outset of the struggle by a terrible plague among the refugees from Attica, crowded behind the Long Walls. The pestilence slew at least one-fourth of the inhabitants of Athens, including Pericles himself. After ten years of fighting both sides grew weary of the war and made a treaty of peace to last for fifty years. THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION, 4l5-4l3 B.C. Not long after the conclusion of peace the Athenians were persuaded by a brilliant and ambitious politician, named Alcibiades, to undertake an expedition against Syracuse in Sicily. This city was a colony of Corinth, and hence was a natural ally of the Peloponnesian states. The Athenians, by conquering it, expected to establish their power in Sicily. But the siege of Syracuse ended in a complete failure. The Athenians failed to capture the city, and in a great naval battle they lost their fleet. Then they tried to retreat by land, but soon had to surrender. Many of the prisoners were sold as slaves; many were thrown by their inhuman captors into the stone quarries near Syracuse, where they perished from exposure and starvation. The Athenians, says Thucydides, "were absolutely annihilated--both army and fleet--and of the many thousands who went away only a handful ever saw their homes again." [21] [Illustration: A SILVER COIN OF SYRACUSE The profile of the nymph Arethusa has been styled the most exquisite Greek head known to us.] LAST STAGE OF THE WAR 413-404 B.C.