At length, in 431, the long foreseen and inevitable Peloponnesian war broke out between Athens and Sparta. The plan of Pericles was for Athens to adopt a defensive attitude, to defend the city itself, leaving Attica to be ravaged by the enemy, but to cripple the power of Sparta by harassing its coasts. The story of the war must be told elsewhere; here it is enough to say that the result was unfavorable to Athens for reasons for which Pericles was only in small part to blame. He trusted in the ultimate success of Athens, both from her superior wealth and from her possessing the command of the sea, but he had not calculated upon the deterioration in her citizens' spirit, nor upon the robust courage of the Boeotian and Spartan infantry. Nor was his advice to keep behind the city walls rather than face the enemy in the field, best calculated to arouse the Athenians' courage. The plague ravaged the city in 430, and in the autumn of the following year, Pericles died after a lingering fever. His two sons had been carried off by the plague, he had been harassed by a charge of peculation brought by Cleon, and the actual infliction of a fine by the dicastery, while he had been without office from July, 430, to July, 429, but before the last he recovered his hold over the Ecclesia, and was gratified in the closing days of his life by its legitimation of his and Aspasia's son. As a statesman his greatest fault was a failure to foresee that personal government is ultimately ruinous to a nation. He taught the people to follow a leader, but he could not perpetuate a descent of leaders like himself. Hence we cannot wonder, when days of trouble broke over Athens, how that men spoke bitterly of Pericles and all his glory. Yet he was a lofty-minded statesman, inspired by noble aspirations, and his heart was full of a noble love for the city and her citizens. Plutarch tells the story that, as he lay dying and apparently unconscious, his friends around his bed were passing in review the great achievements of his life, and the nine trophies which he had erected at different times for so many victories. The dying patriot quietly interrupted with the characteristic sentence: "What you praise in my life belongs partly to good fortune, and is, at best, common to me with many generals. But that of which I am proudest, you have left unnoticed--no Athenian has ever put on mourning through any act of mine." SOCRATES From the French of FENELON (468-399 B.C.) [Illustration: Socrates. [TN]] Socrates, who, by the consent of all antiquity, has been considered as the most virtuous and enlightened of Pagan philosophers, was a citizen of Athens, and belonged to the town of Alopece. He was born in the fourth year of the 77th Olympiad. His father, Sophroniscus, was a sculptor; and his mother, Phanarete, a midwife.