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

>from the Athenians, or any other point in which she thought she had

been prejudiced, but took shelter under the pretext that she could not

give up her Thracian allies, to whom her separate individual

security had been given, when they first rebelled with Potidaea, as

well as upon subsequent occasions. She denied, therefore, that she

committed any violation of her oaths to the allies in not entering

into the treaty with Athens; having sworn upon the faith of the gods

to her Thracian friends, she could not honestly give them up. Besides,

the expression was, “unless the gods or heroes stand in the way.”

Now here, as it appeared to her, the gods stood in the way. This was

what she said on the subject of her former oaths. As to the Argive

alliance, she would confer with her friends and do whatever was right.

The Lacedaemonian envoys returning home, some Argive ambassadors who

happened to be in Corinth pressed her to conclude the alliance without

further delay, but were told to attend at the next congress to be held

at Corinth.

 

Immediately afterwards an Elean embassy arrived, and first making an

alliance with Corinth went on from thence to Argos, according to their

instructions, and became allies of the Argives, their country being

just then at enmity with Lacedaemon and Lepreum. Some time back

there had been a war between the Lepreans and some of the Arcadians;

and the Eleans being called in by the former with the offer of half

their lands, had put an end to the war, and leaving the land in the

hands of its Leprean occupiers had imposed upon them the tribute of

a talent to the Olympian Zeus. Till the Attic war this tribute was

paid by the Lepreans, who then took the war as an excuse for no longer

doing so, and upon the Eleans using force appealed to Lacedaemon.

The case was thus submitted to her arbitrament; but the Eleans,

suspecting the fairness of the tribunal, renounced the reference and

laid waste the Leprean territory. The Lacedaemonians nevertheless

decided that the Lepreans were independent and the Eleans

aggressors, and as the latter did not abide by the arbitration, sent a

garrison of heavy infantry into Lepreum. Upon this the Eleans, holding

that Lacedaemon had received one of their rebel subjects, put

forward the convention providing that each confederate should come out

of the Attic war in possession of what he had when he went into it,

and considering that justice had not been done them went over to the

Argives, and now made the alliance through their ambassadors, who

had been instructed for that purpose. Immediately after them the

Corinthians and the Thracian Chalcidians became allies of Argos.

Meanwhile the Boeotians and Megarians, who acted together, remained

quiet, being left to do as they pleased by Lacedaemon, and thinking

that the Argive democracy would not suit so well with their

aristocratic government as the Lacedaemonian constitution.

 

About the same time in this summer Athens succeeded in reducing

Scione, put the adult males to death, and, making slaves of the

women and children, gave the land for the Plataeans to live in. She

also brought back the Delians to Delos, moved by her misfortunes in

the field and by the commands of the god at Delphi. Meanwhile the

Phocians and Locrians commenced hostilities. The Corinthians and

Argives, being now in alliance, went to Tegea to bring about its

defection from Lacedaemon, seeing that, if so considerable a state

could be persuaded to join, all Peloponnese would be with them. But

when the Tegeans said that they would do nothing against Lacedaemon,

the hitherto zealous Corinthians relaxed their activity, and began

to fear that none of the rest would now come over. Still they went

to the Boeotians and tried to persuade them to alliance and a common

action generally with Argos and themselves, and also begged them to go

with them to Athens and obtain for them a ten days’ truce similar to

that made between the Athenians and Boeotians not long after the fifty

years’ treaty, and, in the event of the Athenians refusing, to throw

up the armistice, and not make any truce in future without Corinth.

These were the requests of the Corinthians. The Boeotians stopped them

on the subject of the Argive alliance, but went with them to Athens,

where however they failed to obtain the ten days’ truce; the

Athenian answer being that the Corinthians had truce already, as being

allies of Lacedaemon. Nevertheless the Boeotians did not throw up

their ten days’ truce, in spite of the prayers and reproaches of the

Corinthians for their breach of faith; and these last had to content

themselves with a de facto armistice with Athens.

 

The same summer the Lacedaemonians marched into Arcadia with

their whole levy under Pleistoanax, son of Pausanias, king of

Lacedaemon, against the Parrhasians, who were subjects of Mantinea,

and a faction of whom had invited their aid. They also meant to

demolish, if possible, the fort of Cypsela which the Mantineans had

built and garrisoned in the Parrhasian territory, to annoy the

district of Sciritis in Laconia. The Lacedaemonians accordingly laid

waste the Parrhasian country, and the Mantineans, placing their town

in the hands of an Argive garrison, addressed themselves to the

defence of their confederacy, but being unable to save Cypsela or

the Parrhasian towns went back to Mantinea. Meanwhile the

Lacedaemonians made the Parrhasians independent, razed the fortress,

and returned home.

 

The same summer the soldiers from Thrace who had gone out with

Brasidas came back, having been brought from thence after the treaty

by Clearidas; and the Lacedaemonians decreed that the Helots who had

fought with Brasidas should be free and allowed to live where they

liked, and not long afterwards settled them with the Neodamodes at

Lepreum, which is situated on the Laconian and Elean border;

Lacedaemon being at this time at enmity with Elis. Those however of

the Spartans who had been taken prisoners on the island and had

surrendered their arms might, it was feared, suppose that they were to

be subjected to some degradation in consequence of their misfortune,

and so make some attempt at revolution, if left in possession of their

franchise. These were therefore at once disfranchised, although some

of them were in office at the time, and thus placed under a disability

to take office, or buy and sell anything. After some time, however,

the franchise was restored to them.

 

The same summer the Dians took Thyssus, a town on Acte by Athos in

alliance with Athens. During the whole of this summer intercourse

between the Athenians and Peloponnesians continued, although each

party began to suspect the other directly after the treaty, because of

the places specified in it not being restored. Lacedaemon, to whose

lot it had fallen to begin by restoring Amphipolis and the other

towns, had not done so. She had equally failed to get the treaty

accepted by her Thracian allies, or by the Boeotians or the

Corinthians; although she was continually promising to unite with

Athens in compelling their compliance, if it were longer refused.

She also kept fixing a time at which those who still refused to come

in were to be declared enemies to both parties, but took care not to

bind herself by any written agreement. Meanwhile the Athenians, seeing

none of these professions performed in fact, began to suspect the

honesty of her intentions, and consequently not only refused to comply

with her demands for Pylos, but also repented having given up the

prisoners from the island, and kept tight hold of the other places,

until Lacedaemon’s part of the treaty should be fulfilled. Lacedaemon,

on the other hand, said she had done what she could, having given up

the Athenian prisoners of war in her possession, evacuated Thrace, and

performed everything else in her power. Amphipolis it was out of her

ability to restore; but she would endeavour to bring the Boeotians and

Corinthians into the treaty, to recover Panactum, and send home all

the Athenian prisoners of war in Boeotia. Meanwhile she required

that Pylos should be restored, or at all events that the Messenians

and Helots should be withdrawn, as her troops had been from Thrace,

and the place garrisoned, if necessary, by the Athenians themselves.

After a number of different conferences held during the summer, she

succeeded in persuading Athens to withdraw from Pylos the Messenians

and the rest of the Helots and deserters from Laconia, who were

accordingly settled by her at Cranii in Cephallenia. Thus during

this summer there was peace and intercourse between the two peoples.

 

Next winter, however, the ephors under whom the treaty had been made

were no longer in office, and some of their successors were directly

opposed to it. Embassies now arrived from the Lacedaemonian

confederacy, and the Athenians, Boeotians, and Corinthians also

presented themselves at Lacedaemon, and after much discussion and no

agreement between them, separated for their several homes; when

Cleobulus and Xenares, the two ephors who were the most anxious to

break off the treaty, took advantage of this opportunity to

communicate privately with the Boeotians and Corinthians, and,

advising them to act as much as possible together, instructed the

former first to enter into alliance with Argos, and then try and bring

themselves and the Argives into alliance with Lacedaemon. The

Boeotians would so be least likely to be compelled to come into the

Attic treaty; and the Lacedaemonians would prefer gaining the

friendship and alliance of Argos even at the price of the hostility of

Athens and the rupture of the treaty. The Boeotians knew that an

honourable friendship with Argos had been long the desire of

Lacedaemon; for the Lacedaemonians believed that this would

considerably facilitate the conduct of the war outside Peloponnese.

Meanwhile they begged the Boeotians to place Panactum in her hands

in order that she might, if possible, obtain Pylos in exchange for it,

and so be more in a position to resume hostilities with Athens.

 

After receiving these instructions for their governments from

Xenares and Cleobulus and their friends at Lacedaemon, the Boeotians

and Corinthians departed. On their way home they were joined by two

persons high in office at Argos, who had waited for them on the

road, and who now sounded them upon the possibility of the Boeotians

joining the Corinthians, Eleans, and Mantineans in becoming the allies

of Argos, in the idea that if this could be effected they would be

able, thus united, to make peace or war as they pleased either against

Lacedaemon or any other power. The Boeotian envoys were were pleased

at thus hearing themselves accidentally asked to do what their friends

at Lacedaemon had told them; and the two Argives perceiving that their

proposal was agreeable, departed with a promise to send ambassadors to

the Boeotians. On their arrival the Boeotians reported to the

Boeotarchs what had been said to them at Lacedaemon and also by the

Argives who had met them, and the Boeotarchs, pleased with the idea,

embraced it with the more eagerness from the lucky coincidence of

Argos soliciting the very thing wanted by their friends at Lacedaemon.

Shortly afterwards ambassadors appeared from Argos with the

proposals indicated; and the Boeotarchs approved of the terms and

dismissed the ambassadors with a promise to send envoys to Argos to

negotiate the alliance.

 

In the meantime it was decided by the Boeotarchs, the Corinthians,

the Megarians, and the envoys from Thrace first to interchange oaths

together to give help to each other whenever it was required and not

to make war or peace except in common; after which the Boeotians and

Megarians, who acted together, should make the alliance with Argos.

But before the oaths were taken the Boeotarchs communicated these

proposals to the four councils of the Boeotians, in whom the supreme

power resides, and