Book 5
When the Mantineans had revolted, the rest of Peloponnesus began also to mutter amongst themselves that it was fit for them to do the like; conceiving that there was somewhat in it more than they knew that made the Mantineans to turn; and were also angry with the Lacedaemonians, amongst many other causes, for that it was written in the articles of the Attic peace that it should be lawful to add unto or take away from the same, whatsoever should seem good to the two cities of the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians.
For this was the article that the most troubled the Peloponnesians and put them into a jealousy that the Lacedaemonians might have a purpose, joining with the Athenians, to bring them into subjection; for in justice, the power of changing the articles ought to have been ascribed to all the confederates in general.
Whereupon, many, fearing such an intention, applied themselves to the Argives, every one severally striving to come into their league.
The Lacedaemonians, perceiving this stir to begin in Peloponnesus, and that the Corinthians were both the contrivers of it and entered themselves also into the league with Argos, sent ambassadors unto Corinth with intention to prevent the sequel of it: and accused them both for the whole design and for their own revolt in particular, which they intended to make from them to the league of the Argives, saying that they should therein infringe their oath and that they had already done unjustly to refuse the peace made with the Athenians; forasmuch as it is an article of their league that what the major part of the confederates should conclude, unless it were hindered by some god or hero, the same was to stand good.
But the Corinthians, those confederates which had refused the peace as well as they being now at Corinth (for they had sent for them before), in their answer to the Lacedaemonians did not openly allege the wrongs they had received; as that the Athenians had not restored Solium nor Anactorium nor anything else they had in this war lost; but pretended not to betray those of Thrace, for that they had in particular taken an oath to them, both when together with Potidaea they first revolted and also another afterwards.
And therefore, they said, they did not break the oath of their league by rejecting the peace with Athens. For having sworn unto them by the gods, they should in betraying them offend the gods. And whereas it is said unless some god or hero hinder it, this appeareth to be a divine hindrance.
Thus they answered for their old oath. Then, for their league with the Argives, they gave this answer:
that when they had advised with their friends, they would do afterwards what should be just. And so the ambassadors of Lacedaemon went home. At the same time were present also in Corinth the ambassadors of Argos to invite the Corinthians to their league, and that without delay. But the Corinthians appointed them to come again at their next sitting.
Presently after this came unto them an ambassage also from Eleians; and first they made a league with the Corinthians, and going thence to Argos, made a league with the Argives, according to the declaration before mentioned. The Eleians had a quarrel with the Lacedaemonians concerning Lepreum.
For the Lepreates having heretofore warred on certain of the Arcadians, and for their aid called the Eleians into their confederacy with condition to give the moiety of the land [to be won from them], when the war was ended, the Eleians gave unto the Lepreates the whole land to be enjoyed by themselves, with an imposition thereon of a talent to be paid to Jupiter Olympian, which they continued to pay till the beginning of the Athenian war.
But afterwards upon pretense of that war giving over the payment, the Eleians would have forced them to it again. The Lepreates for help having recourse to the Lacedaemonians, and the cause being referred to their decision, the Eleians afterwards, upon suspicion that the Lacedaemonians would not do them right, renounced the reference and wasted the territory of the Lepreates.
The Lacedaemonians nevertheless gave sentence that the Lepreates should be at liberty to pay it or not, and that the Eleians did the injury;
and because the Eleians had not stood to the reference, the Lacedaemonians put into Lepreum a garrison of men at arms. The Eleians, taking this as if the Lacedaemonians had received their revolted city, and producing the article of their league that what every one possessed when they entered into the Attic war, the same they should possess when they gave it over, revolted to the Argives as wronged and entered league with them as is before related.
After these came presently into the Argive league the Corinthians and the Chalcideans upon Thrace. The Boeotians also and Megareans threatened as much; but because they thought the Argive democracy would not be so commodious for them, who were governed according to the government of the Lacedaemonians, by oligarchy, they stirred no further in it.
About the same time of this summer the Athenians expugned Scione, slew all that were within it at man's estate, made slaves of the women and children, and gave their territory to the Plataeans. They also replanted the Delians in Delos, both in consideration of the defeats they had received after their expulsion, and also because the oracle at Delphi had commanded it.
The Phoceans and Locrians also began a war at that time against each other.
And the Corinthians and Argives, being now league, went to Tegea to cause it to revolt from the Lacedaemonians, conceiving it to be an important piece [of Peloponnesus], and making account, if they gained it to their side, they should easily obtain the whole.
But when the Tegeates refused to become enemies to the Lacedaemonians, the Corinthians, who till then had been very forward, grew less violent and were afraid that no more of the rest would come in.
Nevertheless they went to the Boeotians, and solicited them to enter into league with them and the Argives and to do as they did. And the Corinthians further desired the Boeotians to go along with them to Athens and to procure for them the like ten days' truce to that which was made between the Athenians and Boeotians presently after the making of the fifty years' peace, on the same terms as the Boeotians had it; and if the Athenians refused, then to renounce theirs and make no more truces hereafter without the Corinthians.
The Corinthians having made this request, the Boeotians willed them, touching the league with the Argives, to stay a while longer, and went with them to Athens, but obtained not the ten days' truce; the Athenians answering that if the Corinthians were confederates with the Lacedaemonians, they had a peace already.
Nevertheless the Boeotians would not relinquish their ten days' truce, though the Corinthians both required the same and affirmed that it was so before agreed on. Yet the Athenians granted the Corinthians a cessation of arms, but without solemn ratification.
The same summer the Lacedaemonians with their whole power, under the conduct of Pleistonanax, the son of Pausanias, king of the Lacedaemonians, made war upon the Parrhasians of Arcadia, subjects of the Mantineans, partly as called in by occasion of sedition and partly because they intended, if they could, to demolish a fortification which the Mantineans had built and kept with a garrison in Cypsela, in the territory of the Parrhasians towards Sciritis of Laconia.
The Lacedaemonians therefore wasted the territory of the Parrhasians. And the Mantineans, leaving their own city to the custody of the Argives, came forth to aid the Parrhasians their confederates; but being unable to defend both the fort of Cypsela and the cities of the Parrhasians too, they went home again.
And the Lacedaemonians, when they had set the Parrhasians at liberty and demolished the fortification, went home likewise.
The same summer, when those soldiers which went out with Brasidas and of which Clearidas after the making of the peace had the charge were returned from the parts upon Thrace, the Lacedaemonians made a decree that those Helotes which had fought under Brasidas should receive their liberty and inhabit where they thought good. But not long after they placed them, together with such others as had been newly enfranchised, in Lepreum, a city standing in the confines between Laconia and the Eleians, with whom they were now at variance.
Fearing also lest those citizens of their own, which had been taken in the island and had delivered up their arms to the Athenians, should upon apprehension of disgrace for that calamity, if they remained capable of honours, make some innovation in the state, they disabled them [though] some of them were in office already. And their disablement was this: that they should neither bear office, nor be capable to buy and sell. Yet in time they were again restored to their former honours.
The same summer also the Dictideans took Thyssus, a town in Mount Athos, and confederate of the Athenians.
This whole summer there was continual commerce between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians; nevertheless they began, both the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians, to have each other in suspicion immediately after the peace, in respect of the places not yet mutually surrendered.
For the Lacedaemonians, to whose lot it fell to make restitution first, had not rendered Amphipolis and the other cities, nor had caused the peace to be accepted by the confederates upon Thrace, nor by the Boeotians nor Corinthians, though they had ever professed that in case they refused they would join with the Athenians to bring them to it by force, and had prefixed a time (though not by writing) within the which such as entered not into this peace were to be held as enemies unto both.
The Athenians, therefore, when they saw none of this really performed, suspected that they had no sincere intention, and thereupon refused to render Pylus when they required it; nay, they repented that they had delivered up the prisoners they took in the island; and detained the rest of the towns they then held till the Lacedaemonians should have performed the conditions on their part also.
The Lacedaemonians to this alleged that they had done what they were able to do, for they had delivered the Athenian prisoners that were in their hands and had withdrawn their soldiers from the parts upon Thrace, and whatsoever else was in their own power to perform; but Amphipolis, they said, was not in their power to surrender; that they would endeavour to bring the Boeotians and Corinthians to accept the peace, and to get Panactum restored, and all the Athenian prisoners in Boeotia to be sent home;
and therefore desired them to make restitution of Pylus, or, if not so, at least to draw out of it the Messenians and Helotes, as they for their part had drawn their garrisons out of the towns upon Thrace;
and if they thought good, to keep it with a garrison of Athenians. After divers and long conferences had this summer, they so far prevailed with the Athenians at the last as they drew thence all the Messenians and Helotes and all other Laconian fugitives and placed them in Cranii, a city of Cephallenia.
So for this summer there was peace and free passage from one to another.
In the beginning of winter (for now there were other ephores in office; not those in whose time the peace was made, but some of them that opposed it), ambassadors being come from the confederates, and the Athenian, Boeotian, and Corinthian ambassadors being [already] there, and having had much conference together but concluded nothing, Cleobulus and 36enares, ephores that most desired the dissolution of the peace, when the rest of the ambassadors were gone home, entered into private conference with the Boeotians and Corinthians, exhorting them to run both the same course; and advised the Boeotians to endeavour first to make a league themselves with the Argives and then to get the Argives together with themselves into a league with the Lacedaemonians, for that they might by this means avoid the necessity of accepting the peace with Athens; for the Lacedaemonians would more regard the friendship and league of the Argives than the enmity and dissolution of the peace with the Athenians; for they knew the Lacedaemonians had ever desired to have Argos their friend upon any reasonable conditions, because they knew that their war without Peloponnesus would thereby be a great deal the easier.
Wherefore they entreated the Boeotians to put Panactum into the hands of the Lacedaemonians, to the end that, if they could get Pylus for it in exchange, they might make war against the Athenians the more commodiously.
The Boeotians and Corinthians, being dismissed by 37enares and Cleobulus, and all the other Lacedaemonians of that faction, with these points to be delivered to their commonwealths, went to their several cities.
And two men of Argos, of principal authority in that city, having waited for and met with them by the way, entered into a treaty with them about a league between the Argives and the Boeotians as there was between them and the Corinthians and the Eleians and Mantineans already; for they thought, if it succeeded, they might [the more] easily have either war or peace (forasmuch as the cause would now be common), either with the Lacedaemonians or whomsoever else it should be needful. When the Boeotian ambassadors heard this, they were well pleased.
For as it chanced, the Argives requested the same things of them, that they by their friends in Lacedaemon had been sent to procure of the Argives. These men therefore of Argos, when they saw that the Boeotians accepted of the motion, promised to send ambassadors to the Boeotians about it, and so departed.
When the Boeotians were come home, they related there what they had heard both at Lacedaemon and by the way from the Argives. The governors of Boeotia were glad thereof, and much more forward in it now than formerly they had been, seeing that not only their friends in Lacedaemon desired, but the Argives themselves hastened to have done the self-same thing.