History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides

Thucydides. The history of the Peloponnesian War, Volume 1-2. Dale, Henry, translator. London: Heinemann and Henry G. Bohn, 1851-1852.

Such was the calamity which the Athenians had met with, and by which they were afflicted, their men dying within the city, and their land being wasted without.

In their misery they remembered this verse amongst other things, as was natural they should; the old men saying that it had been uttered long ago;

A Dorian war shall come, and plague faith it.

Now there was a dispute amongst them, [and some asserted,] that it was not

a plague

[loimos] that had been mentioned in the verse by the men of former times, but

a famine,

[limos]: the opinion, however, at the present time naturally prevailed that

a plague

had been mentioned: for men adapted their recollections to what they were suffering. But, I suppose, in case of another Dorian war ever befalling them after this, and a famine happening to exist, in all probability they will recite the verse accordingly.

Those who were acquainted with it recollected also the oracle given to the Lacedaemonians, when on their inquiring of the god whether they should go to war, he answered,

that if they carried it on with all their might, they would gain the victory;