The Athenians approved of what Pericles had said, and answered, that they would do nothing upon compulsion; but were willing to submit any disputes to arbitration, according to the terms of existing treaties. And the Lacedæmonians departed home, and sent no more embassies. This was the origin of that long and injurious struggle to Greece, commonly called the Peloponnesian war, in the illustration of which these pages will be chiefly employed. It has obtained a celebrity greater than even its own intrinsic importance might have gained for it, in consequence of having been narrated by a contemporary historian, to whose accuracy, impartiality, and profound knowledge, generation after generation have borne one never–varying testimony; and who has well fulfilled the lofty task which he proposed to himself, of leaving, as his memorial, no collection of idle stories, written to gain the favour of the moment, but an everlasting record of those things which have been, and which will again, according to the nature of man, recur in something of a similar form.[87] Hostilities commenced in the year B.C. 431. The Lacedæmonian league comprised all the states of Peloponnesus, except Argos and Achaia, which were neutral; and nearly all northern Greece, except Thessaly and Acarnania, which sided with Athens. The Athenian confederacy contained, besides those two states, Corcyra, Zacynthus, and the newly established city of Naupactus, held by the Messenians, who had revolted from Sparta. Chios and Lesbos furnished ships of war, and were treated as allies; the other islands of the Ægean, except Melos and Thera, together with the Greek cities on the coast of Asia and of Thrace, except a few which had revolted, were tributary subjects, deprived of their ships of war, and subject to the uncontrolled will of the Athenian people. Of the means of Athens at this time, we have a tolerably minute account given by Thucydides. The annual revenue paid by the allies has been stated at about six hundred talents, besides other sources, such as port–dues and taxes. It is much to the credit of Pericles’ administration, that, notwithstanding his lavish expenditure, there was in the treasury at this time six thousand talents of coined money, besides a quantity of uncoined gold and silver, in public and private dedications, vessels of sacrifice and divine service, and Persian spoils, amounting to five hundred talents more. There was also much valuable property in the temples, which they might use if necessary, and especially the golden ornaments and drapery of the statue of Minerva in the Parthenon, made of the purest metal, and forty talents in weight, which could be taken off without injury to the statue, and replaced when circumstances should admit of it. The military force of the state amounted to 13,000 heavy–armed foot, fit for foreign service; 16,000 of the same class, comprising the old and young, and foreigners resident in Athens, who were exempt from foreign