320 THUCYDIDES
where lie worked at his history until liis death, not far from 398 B. c.
At the very outset of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides foresaw that the struggle would be of great importance, and he planned to give a complete account of it from its be- ginning in 431 B. c. to the end. At his death, however, his history had reached only the twenty-first year of the war. His aim was " to preserve an accurate record of the war not only in view of the intrinsic interest and importance of the facts, but also in order that these facts might be perma- nent sources of political teaching to posterity." He hoped, as he himself tells us, that his history would be of profit to " those who desire an exact knowledge of the past as a key to the future, which in all probability will repeat or resem- ble the past. The work is meant to be a possession for- ever, not the rhetorical triumph of an hour."
The following passages are from Jowett's translation.
THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS
The prosperity of Athens during the age of Pericles increased the jealousy of her sister states, and from this arose the long struggle known as the Peloponnesian War. The immediate cause of conflict was the help given by Athens to Corcyra in a war against Corinth. Corinth enlisted Megara and Sparta on her side and declared war against Athens in 431 b. c.
As soon as summer returned,^ the Peloponnesian army, comprising as before two thirds of the force of each confederate state, under the command of the Lacedaemonian king Archidamus, the son of Zeuxi- damus, invaded Attica, where they established them- selves and ravaged the country. They had not been there many days when the plague broke out at Athens for the first time. A similar disorder is said to have previously smitten many places, particularly Lemnos, ^ This was in 430 b. c.
