“Now were men at variance about the word, some saying it was not _Λοιμὸς_ (i. e. the Plague), that was by the ancients mentioned in that verse, but _Λιμὸς_ (i.e. Famine). But upon the present occasion the word _Λοιμὸς_ deservedly obtained. For as men suffered, so they made the verse to say. And I think, if after this there shall ever come another Doric war, and with it a famine, they are like to recite the verse accordingly. There was also reported by such as knew, a certain answer given by the oracle to the Lacedæmonians, when they inquired whether they should make this war or not, ‘that if they warred with all their power, they should have the victory, and that the god[99] himself would take their parts;’ and thereupon they thought the present misery to be a fulfilling of that prophecy. The Peloponnesians were no sooner entered Attica, but the sickness presently began, ‘and never came into Peloponnesus, to speak of, but reigned principally in Athens, and in such other places afterwards as were most populous. And thus much of this disease.[100] The disease remitted during the winter, but in the following summer broke out again, and carried off Pericles among its victims. In that one death Athens received more irretrievable injury than from the loss of all the multitude who perished, for he was the last of that succession of statesmen who founded and matured her greatness. Hitherto the directors, the virtual sovereigns of the state,[101] had been truly demagogues: they led, those who succeeded to their influence were led by, the people, and preserved their power by yielding to and encouraging passions which they ought to have controlled.[102] Two years later the plague broke out again. Altogether it carried off 4400 heavy armed soldiers, and 300 horsemen; that is, 4700 male citizens in the prime of life, between the ages fixed by law as the limits of active service, of the highest and middle ranks alone, besides an innumerable multitude of other persons.[103]