46, 47 J TREATY BETIVEEN ATHENS AND ARGOS 139 mutual consent. If we, they added, had wanted to deal unfairly, we should already have accepted an alliance with the Argivcs, whose ambassadors have come hither to offer it. They entrusted the representation of these and their other grievances to Nicias and his colleagues, and sent them away to Sparta. These, on their arrival, delivered their message, which they concluded by declaring that, luiless the Lacedaemonians renounced their alliance with the Boeotians in case the latter still refused to accept the peace, the Athenians on their part would enter into an alliance with the Argives and their confederates. The Lacedaemonians refused to give up their Boeotian alliance, Xenares the Ephor, with his friends and partisans, carrying this point. However they consented to ratify their former oaths at the request of Nicias, who was afraid that he would return without having settled anything, and would incur the blame of failure, as indeed he did, because he was held to be responsible for the original treaty with the Lacedaemonians. When the Athenians learned on his return that the negotiations with Sparta had miscarried, they were furious ; and acting under a sense of injustice, entered into an alliance with the Argives and their allies, whose ambassadors were present at the time, for Alci- biades had introduced them on purpose. The terms were as follows : —
- L The Athenians and the Argives, Mantineans, and 47
Eleans, on their own behalf and that o{ ^ . „
lemis of an alliniice
the allies over whom they severally behvcen the Atiiemmis rule, make a peace to continue for a ""^1 "^« Argive con- hundred years both by sea and land, ■/'""""-^• without fraud or hurt. The Argives, Eleans, Mantineans, and their allies shall not make war against the Athenians and the allies over whom they rule, and the Athenians and their allies shall not make war against the Argives, Eleans, Mantineans, and their allies, in any sort or manner. 'IL Athens, Argos, Elis, and Mantinea shall be allied for a hundred years on the following conditions: — If
