History of the Peloponnesian War

The cavalry, Pericles pointed out, numbered twelve hundred, including mounted archers, the bow-men sixteen hundred, and the triremes that were seaworthy three hundred.

For these were the forces, and not less than these in each branch, which the Athenians had on hand when the first invasion of the Peloponnesians was impending and they found themselves involved in the war. And Pericles used still other arguments, as was his wont, to prove that they would be victorious in the war.

After the Athenians had heard his words they were won to his view, and they began to bring in from the fields their children and wives, and also their household furniture, pulling down even the woodwork of the houses themselves; but sheep and draught-animals they sent over to Euboea and the adjacent islands.

And the removal was a hard thing for them to accept, because most of them had always been used to live in the country.

And this kind of life had been the characteristic of the Athenians, more than of any other Hellenes, from the very earliest times. For in the time of Cecrops and the earliest kings down to Theseus, Attica had been divided into separate towns, each with its town hall and magistrates, and so long as they had nothing to fear they did not come together to consult with the king, but separately administered their own affairs and took counsel for themselves. Sometimes they even made war upon the king, as, for example, the Eleusinians with Eumolpus did upon Erechtheus.