When the Peloponnesian War broke out, almost fifty years had gone by since the Persian had been driven out of Greece, and the heroes of Marathon, of Thermopylae and of Salamis had already passed into history. That war had been between the Greek and the Barbarian, this war was between Greek and Greek, and it rapidly spread over almost the whole Greek world. The real cause was the rivalry between Athens and Sparta, and it was fought to determine which should be supreme in Greece. Athens was a great sea-power, Sparta a great land-power; Athens was a freedom-loving democracy, Sparta was still governed by an oligarchy; Athens was dependent for her life on the corn that came from afar, Sparta was practically self-sufficing. When the war began, each side was confident and sure of victory. How was it to end? II. ATHENS DURING THE WAR During the first part of the war Athens was supreme at sea; and she strengthened her hold on all the trade routes. But she did not dare meet Sparta {297} in a great open pitched battle on land, for the military power of the latter was no legend, but a most formidable fact. Everything, however, did not go well with Athens during those first few years. Every year the Spartans had invaded Attica and burnt and plundered the land surrounding Athens. This had driven all the country people into the city, where conditions became very congested and intolerable. And then it was that a scourge fell upon Athens from which she never recovered. For two long summers and two long winters the Angel of Death stood over the city and darkened it with his wings and smote the inhabitants, so that one out of every four died. It was the Plague. The whole dreadful story can be read in the pages of Thucydides: how it began in the Peiraeus and then spread to Athens; of the sufferings of those who were seized with it, the rapidity with which it spread and the impossibility of caring for the sick or burying the dead; of the lawlessness in the disorganized terror-stricken city; and of all the misery which came from seeing the inhabitants of the city dying in such numbers and from knowing that without the walls the country was being ravaged.