Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/378

 356 HISTORY OF GREECE. which was the true Karneian moon ; no Dorian state Laving any right to fix it imperatively for the ethers, as the Eleians fixed the Olympic truce, and the Corinthians the Isthmian. It was with a view to satisfy his conscience on this subject that Agesipolis now went to Olympia, and put the question to the oracle of Zeus, whether he might with a safe religious conscience refuse to accept the holy truce, if the Argeians should now tender it. The oracle, habitually dexterous hi meeting a specific question with a general reply, informed him, that he might with a safe conscience decline a truce demanded wrongfully and for underhand purposes. 1 This 1 Xen. Hellen. iv, 7, 2. 'O tie 'Ay^atTroJUf eAtfwv elf -njv ' ia.Zdfj.vo, enrjpura TOV &sbv, el oaiuf av E%OI. ai>riroepeiv roi)f pijvaf, upon which Schneider has a long and not very in- structive note, adopting an untenable hypothesis of Dodwell, that the Ar- geians on this occasion appealed to the sanctity of the Isthmian truce; which is not countenanced by anything in Xenophon, and which it belonged to the Corinthians to announce, not to the Argeians. The plural roi>f nqvaf indicates (as Weiske and Manso understand it) that the Argeians some- times put forward the name of one festival, sometimes of another. "We may be pretty sure that the Karneian festival was one of them ; but what the others were, we cannot tell. It is very probable that there were several festivals of common obligation either among all the Dorians, or between Sparta and Argos irarp^ovg rivag crrovduf IK nahatov Ka&eoTuaat; TOI$ Aupcevai -rrpbf dAAjy/lovf, to use the language of Pausanias (iii, 5, 6j. The language of Xenophon implies that the demand made by the Argeians, for observance of the Holy Truce, was in itself rightful, or rather, that it would have been rightful at a different season ; but that they put themselves in the wrong by making it at an improper season and for a fraudulent po litical purpose. Por some remarks on other fraudulent manoeuvres of the Argeians, re epecting the season of the Karneian truce, see Vol. VII. of this History Oh. Ivi, p. 66. The compound verb iTro^epeiv roiif pr/vac seems to im ply the underhand purpose with which the Argeians preferred their demand of the truce. What were the previous occasions on which they had pre- ferred a similar demand, we are not informed. Two years before, Agesilauj had invaded and laid waste Argos ; perhaps they may have tried, but with- out success, to arrest his march by a similar pious fraud.