History of the Peloponnesian War

"The Lacedaemonians and Athenians shall be allies for fifty years on the following conditions: 1. "If any enemy invade the territory of the Lacedaemonians and be doing them harm, the Athenians shall help the Lacedaemonians in whatever way they can most effectively, with all their might; but if the enemy, after ravaging the country, shall have departed, that city shall be the enemy of the Lacedaemonians and Athenians, and shall suffer at the hands of both, and neither city shall make peace with it without the other. These conditions shall be observed honestly, zealously, and without fraud. 2.

"If any enemy invade the territory of the Athenians and be doing them harm, the Lacedaemonians shall help the Athenians in whatever way they can most effectively, with all their might; but if the enemy, after ravaging the country, shall have departed, that city shall be the enemy of the Lacedaemonians and Athenians, and shall suffer at the hands of both, and neither city shall make peace with it without the other.

These conditions shall be observed honestly, zealously, and without fraud. 3. "If there shall be an insurrection of slaves, the Athenians shall aid the Lacedaemonians with all their might, to the utmost of their power. 4.

"These articles shall be sworn to by the same persons who swore to the other treaty on both sides. They shall be renewed every year, the Lacedaemonians going to Athens at the Dionysia,[*](The City Dionysia; cf. 5.20.1.) the Athenians to Lacedaemon at the Hyacinthia.[*](The festival of Apollo of Amyclae in the month Hyacinthius (Attic Hecatombaion).)5.

"Each party shall erect a pillar, that in Lacedaemon by the temple of Apollo of Amyclae, that at Athens on the Acropolis by the temple of Athena. 6.

"If it shall seem good to the Lacedaemonians and Athenians to add or take away anything pertaining to the alliance, it shall be consistent with the oaths of both to do whatever may seem good to both.

“For the Lacedaemonians the following persons took the oath: Pleistoanax, Agis, Pleistolas, Damagetus, Chionis, Metagenes, Acanthus, Daïthus, Ischagoras, Philocharidas, Zeuxidas, Antippus, Alcinadas, Tellis, Empedias, Menas, Laphilus; for the Athenians, Lampon, Isthmionicus, Laches, Nicias, Euthydemus, Procles, Pythodorus, Hagnon, Myrtilus, Thrasycles, Theagenes, Aristocrates, Iolcius, Timocrates, Leon, Lamachus, Demosthenes.” This alliance was made not long after the treaty, and the Athenians restored to the Lacedaemonians the captives taken on the island;

and thus began the summer of the eleventh year. During these ten years the first war, of which the history has now been written, was waged continuously.

After the treaty and the alliance between the Lacedaemonians and Athenians, which were concluded at the end of the ten years' war, in the ephorate of Pleistolas at Lacedaemon and the archonship of Alcaeus at Athens, those who accepted these were at peace; but the Corinthians and some of the cities in the Peloponnesus attempted to disturb the agreements, and at once other trouble also began between Lacedaemon and her allies.

At the same time, too, the Lacedaemonians, as time went on, incurred the suspicion of the Athenians, by not acting in some matters in accordance with the articles of the agreement.

For six years and ten months the two powers abstained from invading each other's territory; in other regions, however, there was only an unstable cessation of arms and they kept on doing each other the greatest possible damage. But at last they were forced to break the treaty which had been concluded after the first ten years, and again engaged in open war.