Some few found
shelter in the houses of friends or relations; but by far the greater
number were obliged to encamp in the open spaces of the city, in the
precincts of temples, or in the narrow room between the Long Walls.
Even a place beneath the Acropolis, called the Pelasgic Field, was now
covered with the huts of the immigrants, though an ancient oracle had
forbidden its occupation under a curse. From day to day new crowds
kept flocking in, and the later comers were obliged to take up their
dwelling in Peiraeus, which was soon almost as much overcrowded as the
upper city.
And now the younger generation of Athenians, who had entered so
cheerfully into the conflict, were to have their first taste of the
grim realities of war. The Peloponnesian army advanced leisurely, and
proceeded at first to Oenoe, an outlying fort near the borders of
Boeotia; for Archidamus, who held the chief command, still hoped that
the Athenians, when they saw the enemy on the confines of Attica,
would make some concessions, to save their farms from destruction. For
this reason he had long delayed his march from the Isthmus, and now
wasted more time in fruitless operations at Oenoe, until the allies
began to murmur against him, and suspected him of receiving bribes
from the Athenians to spare their lands.
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