一段时间里，雅典与斯巴达相安无事。可一件小小的争执却引发了两个希腊城邦间的仇恨。双方兵戎相见、刀戈相向，战火一直持续了30年。最终以雅典遭受灾难性的失败而告终。

　　During the third year of the war the plague had entered the city. More than half of the people and Pericles, the great leader, had been killed. The plague was followed by a period of bad and untrustworthy leadership. A brilliant young fellow by the name of Alcibiades had gained the favor of the popular assembly. He suggested a raid upon the Spartan colony of Syracuse in Sicily. An expedition was equipped and everything was ready. But Alcibiades got mixed up in a street brawl and was forced to flee. The general who succeeded him was a bungler. First he lost his ships and then he lost his army, and the few surviving Athenians were thrown into the stone-quarries of Syracuse, where they died from hunger and thirst. The expedition had killed all the young men of Athens. The city was doomed. After a long siege the town surrendered in April of the year 404. The high walls were demolished. The navy was taken away by the Spartans. Athens ceased to exist as the center of the great colonial empire which it had conqueredduring the days of its prosperity. But that wonderful desire to learn and to know and to investigate which had distinguished her free citizens during the days of greatness and prosperity did not perish with the walls and the ships. It continued to live. It became even more brilliant.

　　在战事发生的第三年，一场可怕的瘟疫突袭了雅典。雅典的半数人口死于这场天灾。更为可悲的是，他们英明睿智的领袖伯里克利也在瘟疫中罹难。一位名叫阿尔西比阿德的年轻人大有作为，赢得了公众的欢迎，被选为伯里克利的继任者。他建议对西西里岛上的斯巴达殖民地锡拉库扎进行一次远征。这一计划在阿尔西比阿德的周密指挥下有条不紊地实施起来。雅典人集结起一支远征军，储备了大量的军事物资，只待出发的命令。可不幸的是，阿尔西比阿德卷人了一场街头斗殴，被迫逃亡。继任的将军是一个毫无见识与谋略的莽汉，在他的指挥下，先是海军损失了全部船只，接着陆军又遭到毁灭性打击。少数幸存的雅典士兵被俘后押住锡拉库扎的采石场做苦役，最终死于饥渴。这次惨败使雅典元气大伤，几乎所有的青年人都在战斗中阵亡。雅典人注定要输掉这场战争。公元前404年4月，经过长时间无望的困守，雅典投降了。这真是一个黯淡的时刻，防护城市的高大城墙被斯巴达人夷为平地，海军舰只被全部掠走。在其强盛的顶峰，雅典曾征服幅员辽阔的土地，建立起一个以自己为中心的伟大殖民帝国，现在，它在政治军事上已无可奈何地沦落，不复为帝国的中心。但是，那种求知、求真及探索未知的渴望，那种使雅典公民在其繁荣与强盛时期卓越于世的自由 精神，却并未随城墙和舰只一起消失，它继续生长在雅典人的心中，甚至变得比以前更为辉煌。

　　Athens no longer shaped the destinies of the land of Greece. But now, as the home of the first great university the city began to influence the minds of intelligent people far beyond the narrow frontiers of Hellas.

　　雅典衰落了，它不能再决定希腊半岛的命运。可作为人类第一所大学的发源地，它继续指导着热爱智慧的人们的心灵，其影响远远越出了希腊半岛的狭窄边界，远播世界。