Kitap 5
And when the Mantineans had revolted, the rest of the Peloponnesus also began to mutter that they must do the like, thinking that the Mantineans had changed sides because they possessed some superior knowledge. At the same time they were angry with the Lacedaemonians on other grounds, and especially because it was written in the treaty with Athens that it would be consistent with their oaths to add or take away whatever shall seem good to both states, that is, to the Lacedaemonians and Athenians.
For it was this article especially that was disturbing the Peloponnesus far and wide and causing suspicion that the Lacedaemonians wished in concert with the Athenians to reduce them all to slavery; for it would have been just, they thought, that the clause should have given the power to alter the articles to all the allies.
And so most of them were afraid and were eager on their own part also to make a separate alliance with the Argives.
The Lacedaemonians, aware of this murmuring that was going on in the Peloponnesus, and that the Corinthians had been the instigators in this matter and were themselves going to make a treaty with Argos, sent envoys to Corinth, wishing to forestall what was about to happen. And they charged them with starting the whole movement, and said that if they should revolt from them and become allies of the Argives, they would be violating the explicit terms of their oaths, and indeed were already doing wrong in not accepting the treaty with the Athenians, inasmuch as it had been declared that whatever the majority of the allies decreed should be binding, unless there should be some hindrance on the part of gods or heroes.
But the Corinthians, in the presence of all their allies who had not themselves accepted the treaty—for they had on their own responsibility summoned them beforehand— in reply to the Lacedaemonians said in what respects they had been wronged, not stating outright that the Lacedaemonians had failed to recover from the Athenians for them SolliumIn Acarnania, taken by the Athenians in the first year of the war (2.30.1). or Anactorium,cf. 4.49. nor mentioning any other matter in which they thought they were getting less than their rights, but making a pretext that they could not give up their allies in Thrace; for they said they had given their oaths to these people, both privately, when they had first revolted along with the Potidaeans,cf. 1.58.1. and afterwards.
They were therefore, they said, not violating their oaths to their allies by refusing to join in the treaty with the Athenians; for since they had bound themselves to those allies by pledges sworn in the name of the gods, it would not be consistent with their oaths to betray them.
Besides, the words of the agreement were, “if there be no hindrance on the part of gods or heroes”; and it seemed to them that this was a hindrance on the part of the gods.
So much they said in regard to their ancient oaths, but as to the Argive alliance they would consult with their friends and do whatever was right. So the envoys of the Lacedaemonians returned home. But there happened to be at Corinth Argive envoys, who urged the Corinthians to come into the alliance without delay; the latter, however, told them to come to their next assembly.
Soon after there also came an embassy of the Eleans and first concluded an alliance with the Corinthians, and then they proceeded to Argos, as they had been instructed, and made an alliance with the Argives. It seems that at one time the Eleans were at variance with the Lacedaemonians about Lepreum.In Triphylia, not far from the boundaries of Elis and Laconia (5.34.1).
For when there had been a war between the Lepreates and some of the Arcadians, and the Eleans had been invited by the Lepreates to make an alliance with them, with the offer of half their territory, on the conclusion of the war the Eleans left the Lepreates in possession of their land, but assessed upon them a tax of a talent to be paid to Olympian Zeus.
Now up to the war with Athens they regularly paid the tribute; then on the pretext of the war they ceased to pay the tribute, and the Eleans tried to enforce payment, whereupon they had recourse to the Lacedaemonians. The case having been referred to the Lacedaemonians for arbitration, the Eleans, suspecting that they would not receive fair treatment, renounced the arbitration and ravaged the land of the Lepreates.
The Lacedaemonians, nevertheless, gave judgment, to the effect that the Lepreates were independent and the Eleans the aggressors, and as the latter did not abide by the arbitration, sent a garrison of hoplites to Lepreum.
But the Eleans, considering that the Lacedaemonians had taken under their protection a city of theirs that was in revolt, cited the agreement in which it was stipulated that whatever places any of the confederates had when they entered the war with Athens they should retain when they came out of it;
and on the ground that they had not received fair treatment went over to the Argives, their envoys making the alliance as they had been instructed to do. Immediately after them the Corinthians also and the Chalcidians in Thrace became allies of the Argives. But the Boeotians and Megarians, though holding the same views, kept quiet, awaiting events and thinking the Argive democracy not so advantageous for them, with their oligarchical form of government, as the political constitution of the Lacedaemonians.
About the same time during this summer, the Athenians reduced the Scionaeans by siege, slew the adult males,In accordance with the decree moved by Cleon two years before (4.122.6). At the conclusion of peace they had been left at the mercy of the Athenians (5.18.8). made slaves of the women and children, and gave the land to the Plataeans to occupy; and they brought back the Delians to Delos,cf. ch. i. taking to heart their mishaps in the battlesAt Delium and Amphipolis. and obeying an oracle of the god at Delphi.
Meanwhile the Phocians and the Locrians began hostilities.
And the Corinthians and the Argives, being now allies, came to Tegea,It had always maintained an independent position in Arcadia, and in earlier times had been a powerful opponent Of Sparta. hoping to induce it to revolt from the Lacedaemonians, seeing that it was an important part of the Peloponnesus, and thinking if it should be gained to their side they would soon have the whole Peloponnesus.
But when the Tegeates refused to oppose the Lacedaemonians, the Corinthians, who up to that time had been working zealously, became slack in their ardour and full of dread that none of the other Peloponnesians would henceforth come over to them.
Nevertheless they went to the Boeotians and requested them to become allies of themselves and the Argives, and to act generally in concert with them. And the Corinthians further requested the Boeotians to accompany them to Athens and procure for them also the ten days' truceie. a truce which had to be renewed every ten days; or, perhaps, “terminable at ten days' notice,” as Jowett thinks. cf. 5.26.3. which had been made between the Athenians and Boeotians not long after the conclusion of the fifty years' treaty, on the same terms as the Boeotians had obtained, and, if the Athenians did not agree, to renounce the armistice and for the future to make no truce without the Corinthians.
The Boeotians, when the Corinthians made these requests, desired them to wait awhile in regard to the Argive alliance, but they went with them to Athens, where however they failed to obtain the ten days' truce, the Athenians answering them that there was already a truce with the Corinthians, if they were allies of the Lacedaemonians.
But the Boeotians did not any the more give up the ten days' truce, although the Corinthians demanded it and accused them of having agreed with themselves to do so. Between the Corinthians, however, and the Athenians there was a cessation of activities without an actual truce.
The same summer the Lacedaemonians, under the command of Pleistoanax, son of Pausanias, king of the Lacedaemonians, made an expedition with all their forces into the territory of the Parrhasians of Arcadia, who were subjects of the Mantineans. They had been called in by the Parrhasians on account of a factional quarrel, and intended also to demolish, if possible, the fort at Cypsela, which, being situated in Parrhasian territory, the Mantineans had constructed and themselves garrisoned for the annoyance of the district SciritisThe mountainous region between the upper Eurotas and the valley of the Oenus, one of the most important districts of the Perioeci. in Laconia.
The Lacedaemonians proceeded to ravage the land of the Parrhasians, and the Mantineans, giving over the custody of their city to the Argives, tried themselves to guard the territory of their Parrhasian allies. Being unable, however, to save the fort at Cypsela and the towns in Parrhasia, they withdrew.
And the Lacedaemonians, after making the Parrhasians independent and pulling down the fort, then returned home.
During the same summer, on the return from Thrace of the troops which had gone out with Brasidascf. 4.78.1; 4.80.5. and which Clearidascf. xxi 3. had brought back after the treaty was made, the Lacedaemonians voted that the Helots who had fought with Brasidas should be free and dwell wherever they preferred; and not long afterwards they settled them with the NeodamodesThe clans of new citizens formed of Helots emancipated for service in war. at Lepreum on the borders of Laconia and Elis, for they were by this time at variance with the Eleans.
But as to their men who had been taken on the island and had given up their arms, fearing that these might expect to suffer some degradation because of their misfortune and if they continued in possession of the franchise might attempt a revolution, they disfranchised them, though some of them now held office, and with such a disfranchisement that they could neither hold office nor have the legal right to buy or sell anything. In the course of time, however, they were again enfranchised.
During the same summer also the Dians took Thyssus, a town on the promontory of Athos, which was in alliance with the Athenians.
All this summer there was intercourse between the Athenians and Lacedaemonians, but both parties began to suspect one another directly after the conclusion of the treaty, owing to their failure to give back to one another the places specified.
The Lacedaemonians, though they had drawn the lot to make restoration first, had not restored Amphipolis and the other places; nor had they made their allies in Thrace accept the treaty, nor the Boeotians, nor the Corinthians, though they continually professed that they would join the Athenians in coercing these states, if they were unwilling; and they proposed dates, without making a written agreement, on which those who did not accede to the treaty were to be enemies of both.
Seeing, then, that none of these things was actually being done, the Athenians suspected the Lacedaemonians of having no just intentions, and so not only did not restore Pylos when the Lacedaemonians demanded it, but even repented that they had restored the prisoners taken on the island, and they continued to hold the other places, waiting until the Lacedaemonians should have fulfilled their part of the contract.
The Lacedaemonians said that they had done what was possible; for they had restored the prisoners of the Athenians that were in their hands, had brought back their troops in Thrace, and had done whatever else had been in their power. As to Amphipolis, however, they said that they were not in control of it, so as to deliver it up;
but they would try to bring the Boeotians and Corinthians into the treaty and to get back Panactum, and would recover all Athenian prisoners that were in the hands of the Boeotians. Pylos, however, they insisted the Athenians should restore to them;
or at any rate, they should withdraw the Messenians and the Helots, as they themselves had withdrawn their troops from Thrace, and the Athenians themselves might garrison the place if they wished. After many and frequent conferences had been held during this summer, they persuaded the Athenians to withdraw from Pylos the Messenians, the rest of the Helots, and all who had deserted from Laconia;
and these the Athenians settled at Cranii in Cephallenia. This summer, then, there was peace and mutual intercourse.
The following winter the ephors who421-420 B.C. happened to be in office at Sparta were other than those under whom the treaty had been made, and some of them were even opposed to it. Embassies had come from their allies, and there were present also Athenians, Boeotians, and Corinthians; and after much discussion, without coming to an agreement, as the envoys were on the point of departing for home, Cleobulus and Xenares, the ephors who most desired to annul the treaty, made private proposals to the Boeotians and Corinthians, advising them to adopt as far as possible the same policy, and that the Boeotians should first become allies of the Argives and then try to make the Argives along with themselves allies of the Lacedaemonians. For in this way the Boeotians would be least likely to be forced to come into the treaty with Athens, since the Lacedaemonians would prefer gaining the friendship and alliance of the Argives, counting that more important than the enmity of the Athenians and the disruption of the treaty. For they knew that the Lacedaemonians were always desirous that Argos should be friendly to them on fair terms, thinking that war outside of the Peloponnesus would then be an easier matter
for them. Panactum, however, they begged the Boeotians to give up to the Lacedaemonians, in order that they might, if possible, get back Pylos in exchange for it, and so be in a safer position for renewing the war with the Athenians.
The Boeotians and Corinthians, being charged by Xenares and Cleobulus and the Lacedaemonians that were friendly to them with these instructions, which they were to announce to their governments, now returned to their respective cities.
But two Argive men of highest official position, who were watching for them by the way as they went off, joined them and made a proposal to them, in the hope that the Boeotians might become allies to them, just as the Corinthians, Eleans, and Mantineans had done; for they thought, if this succeeded, they might then readily, all pursuing a common policy, carry on war or make peace with the Lacedaemonians, if they should wish, or with anyone else with whom it might be necessary.
The Boeotian envoys were pleased at hearing these things; for by good luck these men were asking the same things as their friends at Lacedaemon had enjoined upon them. And the Argive men, seeing that they were inclined to accept the proposal, told them they would send envoys to the Boeotians and went away.
On coming home the Boeotians reported to the boeotarchs the proposal made at Lacedaemon and also that of the Argives who had met them on the way; and the boeotarchs were pleased and were now far more eager for this arrangement, because matters had turned out to their liking in both directions—their friends among the Lacedaemonians wanting the same things as they did, and the Argives striving for a like end.