VIL putes should arise between the contracting powers, SECT. they should be determined by judicial process, the 'mode of which should be hereafter settled: That the cities to be restored by Lacedæmon, namely, 'Argilus, Stageirus, Acanthus, Scolus, Olynthus, Spartolus, together with those in the peninsula of Athos, should be free, paying only to Athens the tribute appointed by Aristeides: That those cities 'should not, by the operation of this treaty, be 'bound in confederacy with either party; but that it should be permitted them, by their own act, if they should hereafter chuse it, to join the Athe'nian confederacy: That Amphipolis, being an Athenian colony, should be restored unconditionally; and that the Lacedæmonians should procure 'the restoration of the fortress of Panactum in At'tica, taken by the Boeotians. On the other side, 'that Coryphasium (the territory in which Pylus was situated) Cythera, Methonë, Pteleum, and 'Atalanta, should be restored to Lacedæmon. Pri'soners were to be equally restored on both sides. The Scionæans, now besieged, were left to the mercy of the Athenian people; the safe departure ' of the Peloponnesians in garrison with them only being provided for. It was then stipulated that 'every state acceding to the treaty should seve'rally swear to the observation of it, by that oath 'which its own religious institutions made for itself 'most sacred and binding; that such oath should 'be repeated annually; and that columns, with the 'treaty inscribed, should be erected at Olympia, at 'Pytho (the name by which Homer calls Delphi, ' and which seems to have been continued in use 'as a more solemn and sacred appellation) at the 'isthmus, at Athens in the citadel, and at Lacedæ'mon in the Amyclæum and finally, that it should : XVI. 1. 5. c. 19. CHAP. be lawful for the Athenians and Lacedæmonians, 'by mutual consent, to supply any omission, and, ' after due discussion, to make any alteration in Thucyd. these articles.' The date is then added thus: At the conclusion of the treaty presided the ephor 'Pleistolas, on the fourth day before the end of the Lacedæmonian month Artemisius, and the archon 'of Athens, Alcæus, on the sixth day before the ' end of the Athenian month Elaphebolion,' which our chronologers make the tenth of April. Fifteen Lacedæmonians and seventeen Athenians, as representatives of the two states, assisted at the sacrifices, and took the oaths. The name of the ephor Pleistolas stands at the head of the Lacedæmonians, that of Lampon is first of the Athenians; among whom we find those of Nicias, Laches, Agnon, Lamachus, Demosthenes, and others who had been in high situations in the government. CHAPTER XVII. Of the PELOPONNESIAN WAR, during the PEACE between LACEDÆMON and ATHENS, SECTION 1. Alliance Difficulties in the Execution of the Articles of the Peace. SECT. I. THE treaty of peace thus concluded between the leading powers of the two confederacies, which had been contending, with little remission, now ten years in arms, was ill calculated to give general and permanent quiet to the nation. A want of able men in the administration of Lacedæmon, which had been manifested in the conduct of the affairs of that state through the whole of the war, above all showed itself in this treaty, and in the circumstances which followed. A narrow policy appeared in the treaty itself: the exclusive interest of Lacedæmon was considered: that of the allies, by whom Lacedæmon was powerful, and without whom she scarcely could be safe (such was the alteration since the simple age of the great legislator) were unpardonably neglected. The Lace- Thucyd. dæmonians themselves were to recover all that had 1.5. c. 21. been taken from them; but their old and necessary XVII. 1. 5. c. 21. CHAP. allies the Corinthians were to remain deprived of their colonies of Soleium in Ætolia, and Anactorium in Acarnania: the Megarians were to put up with the much more distressing loss of Nisæa, their port, not a mile from the city; while the Eleians were suffering, not neglect, but what they imputed to Sparta as active injustice and oppression. With all this, the Lacedæmonian administration found themselves unable to carry into effect some of the most important articles of their own treaty. It was Thucyd. to be decided by lot, which of the contracting parties should first perform its ingagement, for the restoration of prisoners and places taken, and the lot fell upon Lacedæmon. Accordingly the Athenian prisoners were immediately released; and Ischagoras, with two other commisioners, was sent into Thrace, to direct the surrender of Amphipolis, and to require compliance with the terms of the treaty, from the towns which had been received into the Lacedæmonian alliance. But those towns refused; and Cleäridas, who had succeeded Brasidas in the command in chief in Thrace, would not, pretending he could not, in opposition to the Chalcidians, surrender Amphipolis. Both the general, however, and the Chalcidian chiefs, became apprehensive of the consequences of this disobedience; and the former went himself, the others sent deputies, to apologize for their conduct, but at the same time with a view to procure an alteration of the articles, or even to disturb the peace. Cleäridas was hastily remanded, with orders to bring away all the Peloponnesian forces, if compliance with the terms of the treaty should be any longer delayed. c. 22. The congress of deputies of the confederacy remained still assembled in Lacedæmon, and the Lacedæmonian administration had been in vain 1. urging the dissentients to accede to the treaty. SECT. They were equally unsuccessful in the endevor to accommodate matters with Argos; so that, with that state, a war seemed inevitable, in which, according to all appearance, the greater part of Peloponnesus would be against them. Alarmed by these considerations, they proposed a defensive Thucyd. alliance with Athens, which was hastily concluded; and then the Athenians released the prisoners taken in Sphacteria. Meanwhile the congress of the Pe- c. 24. loponnesian confederacy was dismissed, with a disposition, among many of the members, far from friendly to the political quiet of Greece. The complex intrigues that insued among the Grecian republics, form, in the detail of them remaining to us from Thucydides, not indeed the most splendid, but one of the most curious and instructive portions of Grecian history. Nothing gives to know so intimately the political state of Greece in general, at the time, or the state of parties in the principal republics; and nothing affords equal ground for a just estimation of the value of that union, scarcely to be called a federal union, but rather a connection founded on opinion, and supported principally by similarity of language, manners, and religious belief; a connection subsisting unequally, uncertainly, and yet subsisting, among the numerous and scattered members of the Greek nation. It may indeed be difficult, even with that able and exact historian for our guide, to avoid some tediousness, and perhaps some confusion in the narration; which must however be hazarded, rather than evade an important part of the office of historian. 1. 5. c. 23. c. 22. 27. The Corinthians, irritated now against Lacedæ- c. 27. mon, were not less warm than at the beginning of |