Thucydides relates, too, that the Athenians discussed an ancient oracle which told how a “Dorian war will befall and a pestilence come as companion”; and that in the midst of their despair they could debate whether the oracle said “pestilence” (λοιμός) or “famine” (λιμός), either word being appropriate enough. History repeats itself. At Athens in 1906, during a virulent outbreak of smallpox, with the pest-houses overflowing, the newspapers calmly turned to the really vital question of the proper Greek word for the disease—whether it should be evloyiá (εὐλογιά), or effloyiá (εὐφλογιά). Amidst the splendour of the public buildings the dwelling-houses long remained insignificant. The streets were dark at night. The houses had few windows to let out such light as might come from the “dim and stingy wick” of some miser watching his hoards, or from that of a perplexed father reckoning up his son’s horse-racing debts, as we find old Strepsiades doing in the “Clouds” of Aristophanes:— “The month’s end’s coming and the interest rolling up. I say, slave, light a lamp and bring my ledger here. . . . . . . . . . SLAVE (_entering_). There’s scarce a drop of oil in this here lamp of ours. STREPSIADES. O my! Why did you, tell me, light that thirsty lamp? Come here that you may get a weeping! SLAVE. And why so? STREPSIADES. Because you put in one of those fat, greedy wicks.” In the “Wasps” the jurors, out before dawn to secure a job at the court-room, pick their way along the dark streets with only the link-boys to guard them against stumbling-stones and refuse. MEMBER OF CHORUS. “Let’s march by the lamp and everywhere look well about, around us, Lest here or there should be some stone to trip us and confound us. BOY. Watch out there, father, father, for this dirt, watch out! MEMBER OF CHORUS. Pick up a chip here from the ground and snuff the lamp. BOY. No, with my finger _thus_ I choose to snuff the lamp! MEMBER OF CHORUS. What’s got into your head, with hand to shove the wick, And that when oil’s so scanty? There, you fool, take that!”