History of the Peloponnesian War

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 battles[*](At 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' truce[*](ie. 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.