Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/24

6 (5 IllSTOIJY OF GRKKCK. uot specified in its provisions, but understood, we may be wel. assured, between the Spartan ephors and Nikias at the time when it was concluded. All the Spartan captives at Athens were forth with restored. 1 Nothing can demonstrate more powerfully the pacific and acquiescent feeling now reigning at Athens, as well as the strong philo-Laconian inclinations of her leading men (at this moment Alkibiades was competing with Nikias for the favor of Sparta, as will be stated presently), than the terms of this alliance, which bound Athens to assist in keeping down the Helots, and the still more important after-proceeding, of restoring the Spar- tan captives. Athens thus parted irrevocably with her best card, and promised to renounce her second best, without obtaining the smallest equivalent beyond what was contained in the oath of Sparta to become her ally. For the last three years and a half, ever since the capture of Sphakteria, the possession of these captives had placed her in a position of decided advantage in regard to her chief enemy ; advantage, however, which had to a certain extent been countervailed by subseq'i^nt losses. This state of things was fairly enough represented by the treaty of peace deliberately discussed during the winter, and sworn to at the commencement of spring, whereby a string of concessions, ireciprocal and balancing, had been imposed on both parties. Moreover, Athens had been lucky enough in drawing lots to find -.erself enabled to wait for the actual fulfilment of such conces- ions by the Spartans, before she consummated her own. Now be Spartans had not as yet realized any one of their promised oncessions : nay, more ; in trying to do so, they had displayed such a want either of power or of will, as made it plain, that nothing short of the most stringent necessity would convert their promises into realities. Yet, under these marked indications, Nikias persuades his countrymen to conclude a second treaty which practically annuls the first, and which insures to the Spartans gratuitously all the main benefits of the first, with little, or none of the correlative sacrifices. The alliance of Sparta couli hardly be said to count as a consideration: for that alliance was at this moment, under the uncertain relations with Argos, 1 Tlmcyd. v, 24.