The want of enthusiasm on the part of the Spartan king,—his multiplied delays, first at the isthmus, next in the march, and lastly before Œnoê,—were all offensive to the fiery impatience of the army, who were loud in their murmurs against him. He acted upon the calculation already laid down in his discourse at Sparta,[226]—that the highly cultivated soil of Attica was to be looked upon as a hostage for the pacific dispositions of the Athenians, who would be more likely to yield when devastation, though not yet inflicted, was nevertheless impending, and at their doors. In this point of view, a little delay at the border was no disadvantage; and perhaps the partisans of peace at Athens may have encouraged him to hope that it would enable them to prevail. Nor can we doubt that it was a moment full of difficulty to Periklês at Athens. He had to proclaim to all the proprietors in Attica the painful truth, that they must prepare to see their lands and houses overrun and ruined; and that their persons, families, and movable property, must be brought in for safety either to Athens, or to one of the forts in the territory,—or carried across to one of the neighboring islands. It would, indeed, make a favorable impression when he told them that Archidamus was his own family friend, yet only within such limits as consisted with duty to the city: in case, therefore, the invaders, while ravaging Attica, should receive instruction to spare his own lands, he would forthwith make them over to the state as public property: nor was such a case unlikely to arise, if not from the personal feeling of Archidamus, at least from the deliberate manœuvre of the Spartans, who would seek thus to set the Athenian public against Periklês, as they had tried to do before by demanding the banishment of the sacrilegious Alkmæônid race.[227] But though this declaration would doubtless provoke a hearty cheer, the lesson which he had to inculcate, not simply for admission as prudent policy, but for actual practice, was one revolting alike to the immediate interest, the dignity, and the sympathies of his countrymen. To see their lands all ravaged, without raising an arm to defend them,—to carry away their wives and families, and to desert and dismantle their country residences, as they had done during the Persian invasion,—all in the confidence of compensation in other ways and of remote ultimate success,—were recommendations which, probably, no one but Periklês could have hoped to enforce. They were, moreover, the more painful to execute, inasmuch as the Athenian citizens had very generally retained the habits of residing permanently, not in Athens, but in the various demes of Attica; many of which still preserved their temples, their festivals, their local customs, and their limited municipal autonomy, handed down from the day when they had once been independent of Athens.[228] It was but recently that the farming, the comforts,