BEGINNING OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAK. 129 erately abandoned to a new aggressor, and exchanged for the utmost privation and discomfort. Archidamus might well doubt whether the Athenians would nerve themselves up to the pitch of resolution necessary for this distressing step, when it came to the actual crisis ; and whether they would not constrain Perikles against his will to make propositions for peace. His delay on the border, and postponement of actual devastation, gave the best chance for such propositions being made ; though as this calculation was not realized, the army raised plausible complaints against him for having allowed the Athenians time to save so much of their property. From all parts of Attica the residents flocked within the spa- cious walls of Athens, which now served as shelter for the house- less, like Salamis, forty-nine years before : entire families with all their movable property, and even with the woodwork of their houses ; the sheep and cattle were conveyed to Eubcea and the other adjoining islands. 1 Though a few among the fugitives obtained dwellings or reception from friends, the greater number were compelled to encamp in the vacant spaces of the city and Peiraeus, or in and around the numerous temples of the city, always excepting the acropolis and the eleusinion, which were at all times strictly closed to profane occupants ; but even the ground called the Pelasgikon, immediately under the acropolis, which, by an ancient and ominous tradition, was interdicted to human abode, 2 was made use of under the present necessity. Many, too, placed their families in the towers and recesses of 1 Thucyd. ii, 14.
- Thucyd. ii, 17. KOL TO HeAaa-ymbv naAov/jevov rb imb rrjv aKp6iro7i.iv, 3
ical knaparov re TJV /J.TJ oinelv Kai n nal HV&IKOV fiavreiov uKpo roiovde 6i.eK.uXve, Myov uf rb TLe'XaayiKbv upybv ufieivov, inro TTJS irapaxprifia uvayKTif eZuKTjdij. Thucydides then proceeds to give an explanation of his own for this ancient prophecy, intended to save its credit, as well as to show that his countrymen had not, as some persons alleged, violated any divine mandate by admitting residents into the Pelasgikon. When the oracle said : " The Pelasgikon is better unoccupied," it did not mean to interdict the occupa- tion of that spot, but to foretell that it would never be occupied until a time of severe calamity arrived. The necessity of occupying it grew only oat of national suffering. Such is the explanation suggested by Thucydides.
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