As he lay dying, his friends gathered around his bed. Thinking that he did not hear what they said, they began to speak to one another of the great things he had done during his life. But Pericles heard, and interrupting them said, ‘What you praise in me is partly the result of good fortune, and, at all events, common to me with many other commanders. What I am most proud of, you have not noticed. No Athenian ever put on mourning for an act of mine!’ These were his last words. Plutarch tells us that ‘Pericles was indeed a character deserving our high admiration, not only for his equitable and mild temper, but also for the high spirit and feeling which made him regard it the noblest of all his honours, that, in the exercise of such immense power, he never had treated any enemy as irreconcilably opposed to him. And it appears to me,’ says Plutarch, ‘that this one thing gives that otherwise childish and arrogant title a fitting and becoming significance; so dispassionate a temper, a life so pure and unblemished, might well be called Olympian, in accordance with our conceptions of the divine beings to whom, as the natural authors of all good and of nothing evil, we ascribe the rule and government of the world.’ CHAPTER LXIII THE SIEGE OF PLATAEA The Peloponnesian War began with an attack upon the little town of Plataea. Two years later, in the early summer of 429 B.C., Plataea was again attacked, this time by the Spartans, who were led by their king Archidamus. The town, small though it was, was an Athenian fortress, so the Spartans were eager to raze it to the ground. But Plataea stood on sacred territory; for Pausanias, after his great victory over the Persians, had declared that in time of war it should ever be left undisturbed. The Plataeans reminded the king of the promise of the Spartan general, and begged him to withdraw his troops. Archidamus would not lead his army away, but he promised to do the Plataeans no harm if they would become allies of Sparta, or if they would give up their alliance with Athens and fight on neither side. But the Plataeans would not agree to either of these plans. Then the king offered to let them leave the town. He promised that their homes, their orchards, their fields would be kept in good order as long as the war lasted, and that they would be given back to them when peace was made. It was a generous offer, and the Plataeans begged to be allowed to send to Athens to ask her advice. Her answer speedily settled the matter. ‘Athens,’ so ran the message, ‘never deserted her allies, and would not now neglect the Plataeans, but succour them with all her might. Wherefore the alliance must stand and the attack of the Spartans be withstood.’ When Archidamus heard what Athens had said to the Plataeans, he determined to besiege the town. The Thebans who were with the Spartan army rejoiced that war was to begin, for they were ever bitter enemies of the Plataeans.