History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides [best free ebook reader TXT] 📗

CHAPTER XVI

_Feeling against Sparta in Peloponnese - League of the Mantineans,

Eleans, Argives, and Athenians - Battle of Mantinea and

breaking up of the League_

 

After the treaty and the alliance between the Lacedaemonians and

Athenians, concluded after the ten years’ war, in the ephorate of

Pleistolas at Lacedaemon, and the archonship of Alcaeus at Athens, the

states which had accepted them were at peace; but the Corinthians

and some of the cities in Peloponnese trying to disturb the

settlement, a fresh agitation was instantly commenced by the allies

against Lacedaemon. Further, the Lacedaemonians, as time went on,

became suspected by the Athenians through their not performing some of

the provisions in the treaty; and though for six years and ten

months they abstained from invasion of each other’s territory, yet

abroad an unstable armistice did not prevent either party doing the

other the most effectual injury, until they were finally obliged to

break the treaty made after the ten years’ war and to have recourse to

open hostilities.

 

The history of this period has been also written by the same

Thucydides, an Athenian, in the chronological order of events by

summers and winters, to the time when the Lacedaemonians and their

allies put an end to the Athenian empire, and took the Long Walls

and Piraeus. The war had then lasted for twenty-seven years in all.

Only a mistaken judgment can object to including the interval of

treaty in the war. Looked at by the light of facts it cannot, it

will be found, be rationally considered a state of peace, where

neither party either gave or got back all that they had agreed,

apart from the violations of it which occurred on both sides in the

Mantinean and Epidaurian wars and other instances, and the fact that

the allies in the direction of Thrace were in as open hostility as

ever, while the Boeotians had only a truce renewed every ten days.

So that the first ten years’ war, the treacherous armistice that

followed it, and the subsequent war will, calculating by the

seasons, be found to make up the number of years which I have

mentioned, with the difference of a few days, and to afford an

instance of faith in oracles being for once justified by the event.

I certainly all along remember from the beginning to the end of the

war its being commonly declared that it would last thrice nine

years. I lived through the whole of it, being of an age to

comprehend events, and giving my attention to them in order to know

the exact truth about them. It was also my fate to be an exile from my

country for twenty years after my command at Amphipolis; and being

present with both parties, and more especially with the Peloponnesians

by reason of my exile, I had leisure to observe affairs somewhat

particularly. I will accordingly now relate the differences that arose

after the ten years’ war, the breach of the treaty, and the

hostilities that followed.

 

After the conclusion of the fifty years’ truce and of the

subsequent alliance, the embassies from Peloponnese which had been

summoned for this business returned from Lacedaemon. The rest went

straight home, but the Corinthians first turned aside to Argos and

opened negotiations with some of the men in office there, pointing

out that Lacedaemon could have no good end in view, but only the

subjugation of Peloponnese, or she would never have entered into

treaty and alliance with the once detested Athenians, and that the

duty of consulting for the safety of Peloponnese had now fallen upon

Argos, who should immediately pass a decree inviting any Hellenic

state that chose, such state being independent and accustomed to meet

fellow powers upon the fair and equal ground of law and justice, to

make a defensive alliance with the Argives; appointing a few

individuals with plenipotentiary powers, instead of making the people

the medium of negotiation, in order that, in the case of an applicant

being rejected, the fact of his overtures might not be made public.

They said that many would come over from hatred of the Lacedaemonians.

After this explanation of their views, the Corinthians returned home.

 

The persons with whom they had communicated reported the proposal to

their government and people, and the Argives passed the decree and

chose twelve men to negotiate an alliance for any Hellenic state

that wished it, except Athens and Lacedaemon, neither of which

should be able to join without reference to the Argive people. Argos

came into the plan the more readily because she saw that war with

Lacedaemon was inevitable, the truce being on the point of expiring;

and also because she hoped to gain the supremacy of Peloponnese. For

at this time Lacedaemon had sunk very low in public estimation

because of her disasters, while the Argives were in a most

flourishing condition, having taken no part in the Attic war, but

having on the contrary profited largely by their neutrality. The

Argives accordingly prepared to receive into alliance any of the

Hellenes that desired it.

 

The Mantineans and their allies were the first to come over through

fear of the Lacedaemonians. Having taken advantage of the war against

Athens to reduce a large part of Arcadia into subjection, they

thought that Lacedaemon would not leave them undisturbed in their

conquests, now that she had leisure to interfere, and consequently

gladly turned to a powerful city like Argos, the historical enemy of

the Lacedaemonians, and a sister democracy. Upon the defection of

Mantinea, the rest of Peloponnese at once began to agitate the

propriety of following her example, conceiving that the Mantineans

not have changed sides without good reason; besides which they were

angry with Lacedaemon among other reasons for having inserted in the

treaty with Athens that it should be consistent with their oaths for

both parties, Lacedaemonians and Athenians, to add to or take away

from it according to their discretion. It was this clause that was

the real origin of the panic in Peloponnese, by exciting suspicions

of a Lacedaemonian and Athenian combination against their liberties:

any alteration should properly have been made conditional upon the

consent of the whole body of the allies. With these apprehensions

there was a very general desire in each state to place itself in

alliance with Argos.

 

In the meantime the Lacedaemonians perceiving the agitation going on

in Peloponnese, and that Corinth was the author of it and was

herself about to enter into alliance with the Argives, sent

ambassadors thither in the hope of preventing what was in

contemplation. They accused her of having brought it all about, and

told her that she could not desert Lacedaemon and become the ally of

Argos, without adding violation of her oaths to the crime which she

had already committed in not accepting the treaty with Athens, when it

had been expressly agreed that the decision of the majority of the

allies should be binding, unless the gods or heroes stood in the

way. Corinth in her answer, delivered before those of her allies who

had like her refused to accept the treaty, and whom she had previously

invited to attend, refrained from openly stating the injuries she

complained of, such as the non-recovery of Sollium or Anactorium