Spiro, farmer (404 BC)

Athens will never be a great city again. Most of our important people are dead. Everyone in my family is dead. I have no home. The Spartans destroyed my farm when they tried to break down the walls of Athens in the war.

Can you imagine what it was like to sit on the Acropolis, the hill that overlooks all of Athens and the countryside, and watch while everything you owned was destroyed? My family lived in the countryside around Athens for generations and now it is all gone.

I could survive the loss of my home, but how will I live without my family? I watched my wife, sons, and daughters, die from the plague and there was nothing I could do to help. Now, to make things even worse, Sparta has won the war.