Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 2.djvu/155

 55-57] i^'i^^ DETIVEEN EPIDAURUS AND ARGOS I47 that the Lacedaemonian expedition was over, and seeing that there was no longer any need of them, they departed. And so passed the summer. In the following winter the Lacedaemonians, unknown 56 to the Athenians, sent by sea to Epi- ., , , , The L accaaemoHtans daurus a garrison of three hundred ,^„^i „ gammon by sea under the command of Agesippidas. to Ef>idauins. The Ar- The Argives came to the Athenians S^vcs remonstraie ivith . 1-11 • 1 !• i^*^ Athenians for al- and complamed that, notwithstandmg /^.^,,-,^ u,^ i.acedae- the clause in the treaty which forbade monians to pass. The the passage of enemies through the -'^I'lei'tai's declare the (. r 1 • treaty broken. territory or any 01 the contractnig parties*, they had allowed the Lacedaemonians to pass by sea along the Argive coast. If they did not retaliate by replacing the Messenians and Helots in Pylos, and letting them ravage Laconia, they, the Argives, would consider themselves wronged. The Athenians, by the advice of Alcibiades, inscribed at the foot of the column on which the treaty was recorded '' words to the effect that the Lacedaemonians had not abided by their oaths, and there- upon conveyed the Helots recently settled at Cranii^' to Pylos that they might plunder the country, but they took no further steps. During the winter the war between the Argives and Epidaurians continued ; there was no regular engagement, but there were ambuscades and incursions in which losses were inflicted, now on one side, now on the other. At the end of winter, when the spring was ap- proaching, the Argives came with scaling-ladders against Epidaurus, expecting to find that the place was stripped of its defenders by the war, and could be taken by storm. But the attempt failed, and they returned. So the winter came to an end, and with it the thirteenth year of the war. In the middle of the following summer, the Lacedae- 57 monians, seeing that their Epidaurian allies were in great B. C. 418. distress, and that several cities of Peloponnesus had ' ^°' ^' " Cp. V. 47. § 3. •' Cp. V. 18. § 4 ; 23. § 5. c Cp. V. 35 fin.