THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS. 199

For two years this dread calamity continued to
desolate Athens. Then, after a period of a year and
a half, it came again, and raged for another year as
furiously as before. The losses were frightful. Of
the armed men of the state nearly five thousand
were swept away. Of the poorer people the loss
was beyond computation. Nothing the human
enemy was capable of could have done so much to
ruin Athens as this frightful visitation, and to the
end of the war that city felt its weakening effects.

But perhaps the greatest of the losses of Athens
was the death of Pericles, not by the pestilence, but
from a different disease. In him Athens lost its
wisest man and ablest statesman. The strong hand
which had so long held the rudder of the state was
gone, and the subsequent misfortunes of Athens
were due more to the loss of this wise counsellor
than to the efforts of her foes.