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

out on the last day but three of the month before Carneus, and

keeping this as the day during the whole time that they were out,

invaded and plundered Epidaurus. The Epidaurians summoned their allies

to their aid, some of whom pleaded the month as an excuse; others came

as far as the frontier of Epidaurus and there remained inactive.

 

While the Argives were in Epidaurus embassies from the cities

assembled at Mantinea, upon the invitation of the Athenians. The

conference having begun, the Corinthian Euphamidas said that their

actions did not agree with their words; while they were sitting

deliberating about peace, the Epidaurians and their allies and the

Argives were arrayed against each other in arms; deputies from each

party should first go and separate the armies, and then the talk about

peace might be resumed. In compliance with this suggestion, they

went and brought back the Argives from Epidaurus, and afterwards

reassembled, but without succeeding any better in coming to a

conclusion; and the Argives a second time invaded Epidaurus and

plundered the country. The Lacedaemonians also marched out to

Caryae; but the frontier sacrifices again proving unfavourable, they

went back again, and the Argives, after ravaging about a third of

the Epidaurian territory, returned home. Meanwhile a thousand Athenian

heavy infantry had come to their aid under the command of

Alcibiades, but finding that the Lacedaemonian expedition was at an

end, and that they were no longer wanted, went back again.

 

So passed the summer. The next winter the Lacedaemonians managed

to elude the vigilance of the Athenians, and sent in a garrison of

three hundred men to Epidaurus, under the command of Agesippidas. Upon

this the Argives went to the Athenians and complained of their

having allowed an enemy to pass by sea, in spite of the clause in

the treaty by which the allies were not to allow an enemy to pass

through their country. Unless, therefore, they now put the

Messenians and Helots in Pylos to annoy the Lacedaemonians, they,

the Argives, should consider that faith had not been kept with them.

The Athenians were persuaded by Alcibiades to inscribe at the bottom

of the Laconian pillar that the Lacedaemonians had not kept their

oaths, and to convey the Helots at Cranii to Pylos to plunder the

country; but for the rest they remained quiet as before. During this

winter hostilities went on between the Argives and Epidaurians,

without any pitched battle taking place, but only forays and

ambuscades, in which the losses were small and fell now on one side

and now on the other. At the close of the winter, towards the

beginning of spring, the Argives went with scaling ladders to

Epidaurus, expecting to find it left unguarded on account of the war

and to be able to take it by assault, but returned unsuccessful. And

the winter ended, and with it the thirteenth year of the war ended

also.

 

In the middle of the next summer the Lacedaemonians, seeing the

Epidaurians, their allies, in distress, and the rest of Peloponnese

either in revolt or disaffected, concluded that it was high time for

them to interfere if they wished to stop the progress of the evil, and

accordingly with their full force, the Helots included, took the field

against Argos, under the command of Agis, son of Archidamus, king of

the Lacedaemonians. The Tegeans and the other Arcadian allies of

Lacedaemon joined in the expedition. The allies from the rest of

Peloponnese and from outside mustered at Phlius; the Boeotians with

five thousand heavy infantry and as many light troops, and five

hundred horse and the same number of dismounted troopers; the

Corinthians with two thousand heavy infantry; the rest more or less as

might happen; and the Phliasians with all their forces, the army being

in their country.

 

The preparations of the Lacedaemonians from the first had been known

to the Argives, who did not, however, take the field until the enemy

was on his road to join the rest at Phlius. Reinforced by the

Mantineans with their allies, and by three thousand Elean heavy

infantry, they advanced and fell in with the Lacedaemonians at

Methydrium in Arcadia. Each party took up its position upon a hill,

and the Argives prepared to engage the Lacedaemonians while they

were alone; but Agis eluded them by breaking up his camp in the night,

and proceeded to join the rest of the allies at Phlius. The Argives

discovering this at daybreak, marched first to Argos and then to the

Nemean road, by which they expected the Lacedaemonians and their

allies would come down. However, Agis, instead of taking this road

as they expected, gave the Lacedaemonians, Arcadians, and

Epidaurians their orders, and went along another difficult road, and

descended into the plain of Argos. The Corinthians, Pellenians, and

Phliasians marched by another steep road; while the Boeotians,

Megarians, and Sicyonians had instructions to come down by the

Nemean road where the Argives were posted, in order that, if the enemy

advanced into the plain against the troops of Agis, they might fall

upon his rear with their cavalry. These dispositions concluded, Agis

invaded the plain and began to ravage Saminthus and other places.

 

Discovering this, the Argives came up from Nemea, day having now

dawned. On their way they fell in with the troops of the Phliasians

and Corinthians, and killed a few of the Phliasians and had perhaps

a few more of their own men killed by the Corinthians. Meanwhile the

Boeotians, Megarians, and Sicyonians, advancing upon Nemea according

to their instructions, found the Argives no longer there, as they

had gone down on seeing their property ravaged, and were now forming

for battle, the Lacedaemonians imitating their example. The Argives

were now completely surrounded; from the plain the Lacedaemonians

and their allies shut them off from their city; above them were the

Corinthians, Phliasians, and Pellenians; and on the side of Nemea

the Boeotians, Sicyonians, and Megarians. Meanwhile their army was

without cavalry, the Athenians alone among the allies not having yet

arrived. Now the bulk of the Argives and their allies did not see

the danger of their position, but thought that they could not have a

fairer field, having intercepted the Lacedaemonians in their own

country and close to the city. Two men, however, in the Argive army,

Thrasylus, one of the five generals, and Alciphron, the

Lacedaemonian proxenus, just as the armies were upon the point of

engaging, went and held a parley with Agis and urged him not to

bring on a battle, as the Argives were ready to refer to fair and

equal arbitration whatever complaints the Lacedaemonians might have

against them, and to make a treaty and live in peace in future.

 

The Argives who made these statements did so upon their own

authority, not by order of the people, and Agis on his accepted

their proposals, and without himself either consulting the majority,

simply communicated the matter to a single individual, one of the high

officers accompanying the expedition, and granted the Argives a

truce for four months, in which to fulfil their promises; after

which he immediately led off the army without giving any explanation

to any of the other allies. The Lacedaemonians and allies followed

their general out of respect for the law, but amongst themselves

loudly blamed Agis for going away from so fair a field (the enemy

being hemmed in on every side by infantry and cavalry) without

having done anything worthy of their strength. Indeed this was by

far the finest Hellenic army ever yet brought together; and it

should have been seen while it was still united at Nemea, with the

Lacedaemonians in full force, the Arcadians, Boeotians, Corinthians,

Sicyonians, Pellenians, Phliasians and Megarians, and all these the

flower of their respective populations, thinking themselves a match

not merely for the Argive confederacy, but for another such added to

it. The army thus retired blaming Agis, and returned every man to

his home. The Argives however blamed still more loudly the persons who

had concluded the truce without consulting the people, themselves

thinking that they had let escape with the Lacedaemonians an

opportunity such as they should never see again; as the struggle would

have been under the walls of their city, and by the side of many and

brave allies. On their return accordingly they began to stone

Thrasylus in the bed of the Charadrus, where they try all military

causes before entering the city. Thrasylus fled to the altar, and so

saved his life; his property however they confiscated.

 

After this arrived a thousand Athenian heavy infantry and three

hundred horse, under the command of Laches and Nicostratus; whom the

Argives, being nevertheless loath to break the truce with the

Lacedaemonians, begged to depart, and refused to bring before the

people, to whom they had a communication to make, until compelled to

do so by the entreaties of the Mantineans and Eleans, who were still

at Argos. The Athenians, by the mouth of Alcibiades their ambassador

there present, told the Argives and the allies that they had no

right to make a truce at all without the consent of their fellow

confederates, and now that the Athenians had arrived so opportunely

the war ought to be resumed. These arguments proving successful with

the allies, they immediately marched upon Orchomenos, all except the

Argives, who, although they had consented like the rest, stayed behind

at first, but eventually joined the others. They now all sat down

and besieged Orchomenos, and made assaults upon it; one of their

reasons for desiring to gain this place being that hostages from

Arcadia had been lodged there by the Lacedaemonians. The Orchomenians,

alarmed at the weakness of their wall and the numbers of the enemy,

and at the risk they ran of perishing before relief arrived,

capitulated upon condition of joining the league, of giving hostages

of their own to the Mantineans, and giving up those lodged with them

by the Lacedaemonians. Orchomenos thus secured, the allies now

consulted as to which of the remaining places they should attack next.

The Eleans were urgent for Lepreum; the Mantineans for Tegea; and

the Argives and Athenians giving their support to the Mantineans,

the Eleans went home in a rage at their not having voted for

Lepreum; while the rest of the allies made ready at Mantinea for going

against Tegea, which a party inside had arranged to put into their

hands.

 

Meanwhile the Lacedaemonians, upon their return from Argos after

concluding the four months’ truce, vehemently blamed Agis for not

having subdued Argos, after an opportunity such as they thought they

had never had before; for it was no easy matter to bring so many and

so good allies together. But when the news arrived of the capture of

Orchomenos, they became more angry than ever, and, departing from

all precedent, in the heat of the moment had almost decided to raze

his house, and to fine him ten thousand drachmae. Agis however

entreated them to do none of these things, promising to atone for

his fault by good service in the field, failing which they might

then do to him whatever they pleased; and they accordingly abstained

from razing his house or fining him as they had threatened to do,

and now made a law, hitherto unknown at Lacedaemon, attaching to him

ten Spartans as counsellors, without whose consent he should have no

power to lead an army out of the city.

 

At this juncture arrived word from their friends in Tegea that,

unless they speedily appeared, Tegea would go over from them to the

Argives and their allies, if it had not gone over already. Upon this

news a force marched out from Lacedaemon, of the Spartans and Helots

and all their people, and that instantly and upon a scale never before

witnessed. Advancing to Orestheum in Maenalia, they directed