History of the Peloponnesian War

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;

and that he would himself take part with them in it.

With regard to the oracle then, they supposed that what was happening answered to it. For the disease had begun immediately after the Lacedaemonians had made their incursion; and it did not go into the Peloponnese, worth even speaking of, but ravaged Athens most of all, and next to it the most populous of the other towns. Such were the circumstances that occurred in connexion with the plague.