History of the Peloponnesian War

Putting off from hence, they came to Prasiae, a small maritime city of Laconia, and both wasted the territory about it and took and razed the town itself. And having done this, came home and found the Peloponnesians not now in Attica but gone back.

All the while the Peloponnesians were in the territory of the Athenians and the Athenians abroad with their fleet, the sickness, both in the army and city, destroyed many, insomuch as it was said that the Peloponnesians, fearing the sickness (which they knew to be in the city both by fugitives and by seeing the Athenians burying their dead), went the sooner away out of the country.

And yet they stayed there longer in this invasion than they had done anytime before and wasted even the whole territory, for they continued in Attica almost forty days.