The Athenian Fleet's Return to Athens

The Peloponnesian army probably returned, either because they ran out of provisions, or most likely because they got winded the calamity that was taking place inside Athens itself. It could also be for this reason too that the Athenian fleet returned home in June, instead of continuing onto the northwest again. After starting around the harbors, it spread rapidly through the crowded huts between the long walls, and swiftly reached Athens itself. Nobody, not even Pericles, could have predicted this new crisis that emerged in the city of Athens in the second year of the war.