Book II - Wilbourhall.org

NOTES. 187ceding year, though the Spartans now knew that the Athenianswould not offer battle. It is clear therefore that Sparta toosaw that the only hope was to wear Athens out, Cf. Intr.p. Ixx. KaS(l6)uvo\,—c. 18, 1.47, 3. 'H vooros— 'the famous plague.' The account (c47-54) falls into three parts, (i) its origin (47, 48), (ii)symptoms and ejTectft on suffertra (49, 60), (iii) fffects on morality(61, etc.). This description has been imitated by manywriters, as Lucretius vi. 1138-1251 who is in turn imitated byVergil, Georg. iii. 478 and Ovid, iltt. vii. 523), Procopius,PKTsica II, 22, who describes the plague at Constantinople inJustinian's reign, a.d. 542, and John Cantacuzene, Emperorof the Eastern Empire, who described very poorly the greatplague of 1347 with which the plague of Florence described byBoccaccio and the Black Death ' ' in England are connected.Superstitious horror, followed by demoralisation, is commonto all great plagues. vpwrov ^p^aro—cf. c. 86, 1, 48, 1.'ycvco-dai—the phrase occurs also i. 103 t6 fucros Ijp^aro ytyfaOcu,c. 68, 2, III. 18 6 xe«M«»' ^W^ro yiyvtadcu, Isocr. 15, 82 ifpxf^ot6 yhoi rb rdy dvdpu)rui> yiyvecOai, Andoc. 2, 9 Ijpxfro yiyytadaiSvffdcufxov^ffTepoi. The tense of yiyvofiau must be the same asthat of ipxo^Mi ;yet Ijp^ro irpaffcav is good Greek, thoughfjPXf'o irpd^cu is not (the reason is that yiyyofuu is incej>tiv€,while irpdffcruj is not, so that i^p^ro ylyvtffdcu would be a contradictionin terms ; thus /f^oro yiyptbcKen' would not do).Aryo|i(vov—as though vdcrifia had preceded. lY'^aTa(ncT)t|/ai—Soph. O. T. 27 ^v 5' 6 xvp