196 HISTORICAL TALES.

rested an abundant supply of money,—the sinews
of war,—with whose aid food and supplies could be
brought from over the seas. In vain, then, did
Sparta ravage the fields of Attica. The people of
that desolated realm defied them from behind their
city walls.

When winter came the invaders retired and the
farmers went back to their fields. In the spring
they ploughed and sowed as of yore, and watched in
hope the growing crops. But with the summer the
Spartans came again, to destroy their hopes of a
harvest, and the country people once more fled for
safety to their great city’s defiant walls.

It was a strange spectacle, that of a powerful in-
vading army wreaking their wrath year after year
on deserted fields, and gnashing their teeth in impo-
tent rage before lofty and well-defended walls and
ramparts, behind which lay their foes, little the
worse for all that their malice could perform.

Athens felt secure, and laughed her enemy to
scorn. Unhappily for her, a new enemy was at
hand, against whom the mightiest walls were of no
avail. Sparta gained an unthought-of ally, and
death stalked at large in the Athenian streets, silent
and implacable, without clash of weapon or shout of
war, yet more fatal and merciless than would have
been the strongest army in the field.

Athens was crowded. The country people filled
all available space. There was little attention to
drainage or sanitary regulations. An open invita-
tion was given to postilence, and the invited enemy
came. For some years before the plague had been