When the herald arrived,
he found the men already slain, and the Athenians then proceeded to
place the town in a state of defence, removing the women and children
and all those who were unfit for military service, to Athens, and
leaving a small body of their own citizens to direct operations.
II
The surprise of Plataea was the first open violation of the Thirty Years' Truce, and from this time forward all Greece was involved for many years in civil war. Public opinion was strongly on the side of the Spartans, who stood forward as champions of the liberties of Greece; but there was great enthusiasm on both sides, and the popular imagination was much excited by the approaching struggle between the two imperial cities. Both in Sparta and in Athens there was a younger generation, who had grown up during a long period of peace, and now entered gaily into the contest with all the light-hearted ignorance of youth. Old prophecies current among the people, foretelling a great war of Greeks against Greeks, passed from mouth to mouth, and the professional soothsayers, whose business it was to collect and expound such sayings, found eager hearers. The gods themselves could not be indifferent on the eve of such mighty events, so deeply affecting the destiny of the nation which worshipped them in a thousand temples; and an earthquake, which had recently occurred at Delos, the sacred island of Apollo, where such a visitation had never been known before, was interpreted as a portent of great things to come.
While the Peloponnesians were mustering their forces at the Isthmus, the rural population of Attica were breaking up their homes, and flocking by thousands into the city. A constant stream of waggons passed along the roads, loaded with furniture, household utensils, and even the woodwork of the farm-buildings; and many a little group of women, children, and servants set out on that sorrowful journey, leaving their fields, their gardens, and their vineyards, to be trampled down and laid waste by the ruthless invader. Athens, indeed, was the common mother of them all, their glory, their strength, and their pride; for since the days of Theseus the scattered rural communities of Attica had been united under the Aegis of Athene, and acknowledged Athens as the head and centre of their civic life. But a large proportion of the Athenian citizens still continued to reside in the country, and all their dearest associations were connected with the little spot of earth where they and their fathers were born. Here were the graves of their ancestors, and the temples of the heroes who were the guardian spirits of each little aggregate of families. It was therefore with bitter and resentful feelings that they left these happy scenes behind them, and turned their steps towards the gates of the city, through which many of them were never to pass again. For all of them it was a grievous change from the free and careless life of the country-side to the confined space, polluted air, and jostling multitudes of the town, now crowded to overflowing. Some few found shelter in the houses of friends or relations; but by far the greater number were obliged to encamp in the open spaces of the city, in the precincts of temples, or in the narrow room between the Long Walls. Even a place beneath the Acropolis, called the Pelasgic Field, was now covered with the huts of the immigrants, though an ancient oracle had forbidden its occupation under a curse. From day to day new crowds kept flocking in, and the later comers were obliged to take up their dwelling in Peiraeus, which was soon almost as much overcrowded as the upper city.
And now the younger generation of Athenians, who had entered so cheerfully into the conflict, were to have their first taste of the grim realities of war. The Peloponnesian army advanced leisurely, and proceeded at first to Oenoe, an outlying fort near the borders of Boeotia; for Archidamus, who held the chief command, still hoped that the Athenians, when they saw the enemy on the confines of Attica, would make some concessions, to save their farms from destruction. For this reason he had long delayed his march from the Isthmus, and now wasted more time in fruitless operations at Oenoe, until the allies began to murmur against him, and suspected him of receiving bribes from the Athenians to spare their lands. At last, being unable to put off the fatal moment any longer, he turned southwards, and after ravaging the plain of Eleusis, advanced to Acharnae, one of the most fertile and prosperous districts of Attica, about seven miles north of Athens. Here the Peloponnesians encamped, and applied themselves systematically to the work of pillage and havoc.
