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The inroads of the Peloponnesians into Attica had not had the desired effect of making the Athenians raise the siege. Provisions there were none left; and so far had distress for food gone in Potidaea that, besides a number of other horrors, instances had even occurred of the people having eaten one another.

All this happened before he and I went on the expedition to Potidaea; there we messed together, and I had the opportunity of observing his extraordinary power of sustaining fatigue.

"You know what you have to do, if you would wipe out the reproach which rests upon you, and keep the respect of your faithful allies. Send an army into Attica, and compel the Athenians to withdraw their forces from Potidaea. And let it be done speedily, for while we are talking our kinsmen are perishing."

His words overcame him so much, as to draw tears from his eyes, and to disturb his very soul. Yet sometimes he would abandon himself to flatterers, when they proposed to him varieties of pleasure, and would desert Socrates; who then would pursue him, as if he had been a fugitive slave. Alc. ch. 4. Socrates and Alcibiades were fellow- soldiers at Potidaea and shared the same tent.

They accordingly demolished their towns, removed inland and prepared for war. The thirty ships of the Athenians, arriving before the Thracian places, found Potidaea and the rest in revolt.

Strange, indeed, would be my conduct, O men of Athens, if I who, when I was ordered by the generals whom you chose to command me at Potidaea and Amphipolis and Delium, remained where they placed me, like any other man, facing death if now, when, as I conceive and imagine, God orders me to fulfil the philosopher's mission of searching into myself and other men, I were to desert my post through fear of death, or any other fear; that would indeed be strange, and I might justly be arraigned in court for denying the existence of the gods, if I disobeyed the oracle because I was afraid of death, fancying that I was wise when I was not wise.

Aristeus, son of Adimantus, who was always a steady friend to the Potidaeans, took command of the expedition, and it was principally for love of him that most of the men from Corinth volunteered. They arrived in Thrace forty days after the revolt of Potidaea. The Athenians also immediately received the news of the revolt of the cities.

As soon as they arrived, they brought up their engines against Potidaea and tried every means of taking it, but did not succeed either in capturing the city or in doing anything else worthy of their preparations.

The armament was brought back in this distressed condition to Athens, while the reduction of Potidaea was left as before, to the slow course of blockade. On returning from the expedition against Peloponnesus, Pericles found his countrymen almost distracted with their manifold sufferings.

Whilst he was very young, he was a soldier in the expedition against Potidaea, where Socrates lodged in the same tent with him, and stood next him in battle.