History of the Peloponnesian War

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.

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 Sciritis[*](The 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 Brasidas[*](cf. 4.78.1; 4.80.5.) and which Clearidas[*](cf. 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 Neodamodes[*](The 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.