127.
The Lacedaemonians desired the Athenians to drive away this curse, as if the honour of
the1 Gods were their first object, but in reality because they knew that the curse
attached to Pericles, the son of Xanthippus, by his mother's side, and they thought that
if he were banished they would find the Athenians more manageable.
[2]
They did not really expect that he would be driven into exile, but they hoped to
discredit him with the citizens and make them believe that his misfortune was to a
certain extent the cause of the war.
[3]
For he was the leader of the state and the most powerful man of his day, and his policy
was utterly opposed to the Lacedaemonians.
He would not suffer the Athenians to give way,
but was always urging upon them the
necessity of war.
1 This curse attached to Pericles.
Thucydides translated into English; with introduction, marginal analysis, notes, and indices. Volume 1. Thucydides. Benjamin Jowett. translator. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1881.
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