Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/113

95 ALLIANCE BETWEEN SPARTA AND ARGOS. <Jj amicable adjustment. 1 If any allied city shall quarrel with another allied city, the matter shall be referred to some third city satisfactory to both. Each city shall render justice to her own citizens according to her own ancient constitution." It will be observed that in this treaty of alliance, the disputed question of headship is compromised or evaded. Laced<jeinon and Argos are both put upon an equal footing, in respect to taking joint counsel for the general body of allies : they two alone are to decide, without consulting the other allies, though oinding themselves to have regard to the interests of the latter. The policy of Lacedsemon also pervades the treaty, that of insuring autonomy to all the lesser states of Peloponnesus, and thus breaking up the empire of Elis, Mantineia, or any other larger state which might have dependencies. 2 And accordingly the Mantineians, finding themselves abandoned by Argos, were constrained to make their submission to Sparta, enrolling them- selves again as her allies, renouncing all command over their 1 Thucyd. v, 79. Ai (5e nvi TUV iroMuv ij ufj.i7ioya, rj TUV evTOf fj TUV IKTO<; He/.oTrovvaaov, alre TTepl opuv airs irepl u7.ov Tivof, diaKpifiq/Liev. The object of this clause I presume to be, to provide that the joint forces of Lacedsemon and Argos should not be bound to interfere for every sepa- rate dispute of each single ally with a foreign state, not included in the alii since. Thus, there were at this time standing disputes between Boeotia and Athens, and between Megara and Athens : the Argeians probably would not choose to pledge themselves to interfere for the maintenance of the alleged rights of Boeotia and Megara in these disputes. They guard them- selves against such necessity in this clause. M. H. Meier, in his recent Dissertation (Die Privat. Schiedsrichter und die Sffentlichen Diateten Athens (Halle, 1846), sect. 19, p. 41), has given an analysis and explanation of this treaty which seems to me on many points unsatisfactory. 2 All the smaller states in Peloponnesus are pronounced by this treaty to be (if we employ the language employed with reference to the Delphians peculiarly in the Peace of Nikias) avrovofiovf, avroTefalf, av-ro6'iKov( t Thucyd. v, 19. The last clause of this treaty guarantees avrodiKiav to all though in language somewhat different, ro?f 6e eraig Kara irarpia 6iica&- cdat. The expression in this treaty aiironofaef is substantially equivalent to aiiroreAeif in the former. It is remarkable that we never find in Thucydides the very convenient Herodotean word duaidiKoi (Herodot. vi. 42), though there are occasions in these fourth and fifth books on which it would be useful to his meaning.