Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 2.djvu/159

 60-62] MORE A THENIAN TROOPS IN PELOPONNESUS 15 1 where they hold military trials before they enter the city, they began to stone Thrasyllus. He saved his life by Hying to the altar, but they confiscated his property. Soon afterwards there arrived an Athenian reinforce- 61 nient of a thousand hoplites and three ,,, , , , J J, , , 1 ^ Alabiacles aitd the hundred horse, under the command of „i,„, ,.c/nse to acknow- Laches and Nicostratus. The Argives, ledge the truce. The although dissatisfied with the truce, Argives relnctmitly con- , 1 1 • •s^"' 'o ''•s violation. were reluctant to break it, so they bade jh, „,„y,rf yj,,.,,^ ^,. them depart ; and, when they desired siege Orchomcnus, to treat, they would not present them '" ^">><^»^"-s *o ,, , -I. them. to the assembly until they were com- pelled by the importunity of their Mantinean and Elean allies, who had not yet left Argos. The Athenians then, speaking by the mouth of their ambassador Alcibiades, told the Argives in the presence of the rest that they had no right to make the truce at all independently of their allies, and that, the Athenians having arrived at the opportune moment, they should fight at once. The allies were con- vinced, and they all, with the exception of the Argives, immediately marched against Orchomenus in Arcadia ; the Argives, though consenting, did not join them at first, but they came afterwards. The united forces then sat down before Orchomenus, which they assailed repeatedly ; they were especially anxious to get the place into their hands, because certain Arcadian hostages had been deposited there by the Lacedaemonians. The Orcho- menians, considering the weakness of their fortifications and the numbers of the enemy, and beginning to fear that they might perish before any one came to their assistance, agreed to join the alliance : they were to give hostages of their own to the Mantineans, and to deliver up those whom the Lacedaemonians had deposited with them. The allied force, now in possession of Orchomenus, 62 considered against what town they should next proceed ; the Eleans wanted them to attack Lepreum, the Man- tineans Tegea. The Argives and Athenians sided with VOL. II. M