connection, she at length concluded the alliance just as winter gave
way to spring; and Panactum was instantly razed. And so the eleventh
year of the war ended.
In the first days of the summer following, the Argives, seeing
that the promised ambassadors from Boeotia did not arrive, and that
Panactum was being demolished, and that a separate alliance had been
concluded between the Boeotians and Lacedaemonians, began to be afraid
that Argos might be left alone, and all the confederacy go over to
Lacedaemon. They fancied that the Boeotians had been persuaded by
the Lacedaemonians to raze Panactum and to enter into the treaty
with the Athenians, and that Athens was privy to this arrangement, and
even her alliance, therefore, no longer open to them- a resource
which they had always counted upon, by reason of the dissensions
existing, in the event of the noncontinuance of their treaty with
Lacedaemon. In this strait the Argives, afraid that, as the result
of refusing to renew the treaty with Lacedaemon and of aspiring to the
supremacy in Peloponnese, they would have the Lacedaemonians, Tegeans,
Boeotians, and Athenians on their hands all at once, now hastily
sent off Eustrophus and Aeson, who seemed the persons most likely to
be acceptable, as envoys to Lacedaemon, with the view of making as
good a treaty as they could with the Lacedaemonians, upon such terms
as could be got, and being left in peace.
Having reached Lacedaemon, their ambassadors proceeded to
negotiate the terms of the proposed treaty. What the Argives first
demanded was that they might be allowed to refer to the arbitration of
some state or private person the question of the Cynurian land, a
piece of frontier territory about which they have always been
disputing, and which contains the towns of Thyrea and Anthene, and
is occupied by the Lacedaemonians. The Lacedaemonians at first said
that they could not allow this point to be discussed, but were ready
to conclude upon the old terms. Eventually, however, the Argive
ambassadors succeeded in obtaining from them this concession: For
the present there was to be a truce for fifty years, but it should
be competent for either party, there being neither plague nor war in
Lacedaemon or Argos, to give a formal challenge and decide the
question of this territory by battle, as on a former occasion, when
both sides claimed the victory; pursuit not being allowed beyond the
frontier of Argos or Lacedaemon. The Lacedaemonians at first thought
this mere folly; but at last, anxious at any cost to have the
friendship of Argos they agreed to the terms demanded, and reduced
them to writing. However, before any of this should become binding,
the ambassadors were to return to Argos and communicate with their
people and, in the event of their approval, to come at the feast of
the Hyacinthia and take the oaths.
The envoys returned accordingly. In the meantime, while the Argives
were engaged in these negotiations, the Lacedaemonian ambassadors-
Andromedes, Phaedimus, and Antimenidas- who were to receive
the prisoners from the Boeotians and restore them and Panactum to
the Athenians, found that the Boeotians had themselves razed Panactum,
upon the plea that oaths had been anciently exchanged between their
people and the Athenians, after a dispute on the subject to the effect
that neither should inhabit the place, but that they should graze it
in common. As for the Athenian prisoners of war in the hands of the
Boeotians, these were delivered over to Andromedes and his colleagues,
and by them conveyed to Athens and given back. The envoys at the
same time announced the razing of Panactum, which to them seemed as
good as its restitution, as it would no longer lodge an enemy of
Athens. This announcement was received with great indignation by the
Athenians, who thought that the Lacedaemonians had played them
false, both in the matter of the demolition of Panactum, which ought
to have been restored to them standing, and in having, as they now
heard, made a separate alliance with the Boeotians, in spite of
their previous promise to join Athens in compelling the adhesion of
those who refused to accede to the treaty. The Athenians also