Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/45

27 CHANGE OF POLICY AT ARGOS. 27 oaths which had been exchanged between their ancestors aid the Athenians, to the effect that the district round it should always remain without resident inhabitants, as a neutral strip of border- land, and under common pasture. These negotiations, after having been in progress throughout the winter, ended in the accomplishment of the alliance and the destruction of Panaktum at the beginning of spring or about the middle of March. And while the Lacedaemonian ephors thus seemed to be carrying their point on the side of Bceotia, they were agreeably surprised by an unexpected encouragement to their views from another quarter. An embassy arrived at Sparta from Argos, to solicit renewal of the peace just expiring. The Argeians found that they made no progress in the enlargement of their newly-formed confederacy, while their recent disappoint- ment with the Boeotians made them despair of realizing their ambitious projects of Peloponnesian headship. But when they learned that the Lacedemonians had concluded a separate alliance with the Boeotians, and that Panaktum had been razed, their disappointment was converted into positive alarm for the future. Naturally inferring that this new alliance would not have been concluded except in concert with Athens, they interpreted the whole proceeding as indicating that Sparta had prevailed upon the Boeotians to accept the peace with Athens, the destruction of Panaktum being conceived as a compromise to obviate disputes respecting possession. Under such a persuasion, noway un- reasonable in itself, when the two contracting governments, both oligarchical and both secret, furnished no collateral evidence to explain their real intent, the Argeians saw themselves excluded from alliance not merely with Boeotia, Sparta, and Tegea, but also with Athens ; which latter city they had hitherto regarded as a sure resort in case of hostility with Sparta. Without a moment's delay, they despatched Eustrophus anj JEson, two Argeians much esteemed at Sparta, and perhaps proxeni of that city, to press for a renewal of their expiring truce with the Spartans, and to obtain the bast terms they could. To the Lacedaemonian ephors this application was eminently acceptable, the very event which they had been manoeuvring underhand to bring about : and negotiations were opened, in -which the Argeian envoys at lirst proposed that the disputed