When the first invasion of Attica was over, two cities, which had been foremost in stirring up war against Athens, were made to feel the full weight of her resentment. The unhappy Aeginetans were expelled from their island, and the land of Aegina was distributed among Athenian citizens. And later in the same summer the Athenians marched in full force into the territory of Megara, which was laid waste from end to end. This proceeding, which afforded a pleasant summer excursion to the Athenians, was repeated annually for the next seven years. The banished Aeginetans found an asylum at Thyrea, a coast district of eastern Peloponnesus, which was assigned to them by Sparta. And so the first year of the war came to an end; for, except on extraordinary occasions, no military operations were undertaken during the winter. THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS I At the beginning of the next summer the Peloponnesians again entered Attica, and resumed their work of devastation, destroying the young crops, and wrecking whatever had been spared in the previous year. Before they had been many days in Attica, a new and far more terrible visitation came upon the Athenians, threatening them with total extinction as a people. We have seen how the whole upper city, with the space between the Long Walls, and the harbour-town of Peiraeus, was packed with a vast multitude of human beings, penned together, like sheep in a fold. Into these huddled masses now crept a subtle and unseen foe, striking down his victims by hundreds and by thousands. That foe was the Plague, which beginning in Southern Africa, and descending thence to Egypt, reached the southern shores of the Mediterranean, and passed on to Peiraeus, having been carried thither by seamen who trafficked between northern Africa and Greece. From Peiraeus it spread upwards with rapid strides, and before long the whole space within the walls presented the appearance of a vast lazar-house.