Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/88

70 VU HISTORY OF GKKKtv;. The Epidaurians were reinforced about the end of September by a detachment of three hundred Lacedaemonian hoplites under Agesippidas, sent by sea without the knowledge of the Athenians. Of this, the Argeians preferred loud complaints at Athens ; and they had good reason to condemn the negligence of the Athenians as allies, for not having kept better naval watch at their neigh- boring station of JEgina, and for having allowed this enemy to enter the harbor of Epidaurus. But they took another ground of complaint, somewhat remarkable. In the alliance between Athens, Argos, Elis, and Mantineia, it had been stipulated that neither of the four should suffer the passage of troops through its territory, without the joint consent of all. Now the sea was accounted a part of the territory of Athens : so that the Athe- nians had violated this article of the treaty by permitting the Lacedaemonians to send troops by sea to Epidaurus. And the Argeians now required Athens, in compensation for this wrong, to carry Lack the Messenians and Helots from Kephallenia tc Pylos, and allow them to ravage Laconia. The Athenians, under the persuasion of Alkibiades, complied with their requisition ; in- scribing, at the foot of the pillar on which their alliance with Sparta stood recorded, that the Lacedaemonians had not observed their oaths. Nevertheless, they still abstained from formally throwing up their treaty with Lacedoemon, or breaking it in any other way. 1 The relations between Athens and Sparta thus re- mained in name, peace and alliance, so far as concerns direct operations against each other's territory ; in reality, hostile action as well as hostile manoeuvring, against each other, as allies re spectively of third parties. The Argeians, after having prolonged their incursions on the Epidaurian territory throughout all the autumn, made in the winter an unavailing attempt to take the town itself by storm. Though there was no considerable action, but merely a succes- sion of desultory attacks, in some of which the Epidaurians even or pluperfect tense, is powerfully contradicted by the use of the word cfe- arpaTevfttvuv (ii, 7), the same verb and the same tense, yet in :i mcaninp contrary to that which he assign?. It appears to me the least objectionable proceeding of the two. to dr. P'jnse with the particle 6s. 1 Thucyd. v, 5 >.