History of the Peloponnesian War

Such was the nature of the calamity, and heavily did it weigh on the Athenians; death raging within the city and devastation without.

Among other things which they remembered in their distress was, very naturally, the following verse which the old men said had long ago been uttered:

1. A Dorian war shall come and with it death.

So a dispute arose as to whether dearth and not death had not been the word in the verse; but at the present juncture, it was of course decided in favor of the latter; for the people made their recollection fit in with their sufferings. I fancy, however, that if another Dorian war should ever afterwards come upon us, and a dearth should happen to accompany it, the verse will probably be read accordingly.