Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 2.djvu/395

 70, 7«J AGIS AND THE OLIGARCHS 387 exiled. They also sent heralds to Agis, the Lacedaemonian king, who was at Decelea, saying that they desired to con- clude a peace with him ; and that they expected him to be more ready to treat with them than with the perfidious democracy. But he, thinking that the city must be in an unsettled 71 state and that the people would not so quickly yield up their ancient liberty, ^/^J' *^'"'king that . . -^ li'e city IS now at /us thinking too that the appearance of mercy, refuses to treat a great Lacedaemonian army would ""^ "^"'- -S"' "/>- increase their excitement, and far from f"^"y"^S 00 >'c(f' '<« ' wall, he ts unciecetved. convinced that civil strife was not The Four Hundred at at that very moment raging among f'*^ suggestion send an them, gave unfavourable answers to ""^^' '" ^""'^'"' ' ° nton. the envoys of the Four Hundred. He sent to Peloponnesus for large reinforcements, and then, with the garrison at Decelea and the newly arrived troops, came down in person to the very walls of Athens. He expected that the Athenians, distracted by civil strife, would be quite at his mercy ; there would be such a panic created by the presence of enemies both within and with- out the walls, that he might even succeed in taking the city at the first onset ; for the Long Walls would be deserted, and he could not fail of capturing them. But when he drew near there was no sign of the slightest disorder within ; the Athenians, sending out their cavalry and a force of heavy and light-armed troops and archers, struck down a few of his soldiers who had ventured too far, and retained possession of some arms and dead bodies; whereupon, having found out his mistake, he withdrew to Decelea. There he and the garrison remained at their posts ; but he ordered the newly arrived troops, after they had continued a few days in Attica, to return home. The Four Hundred resumed negotiations, and Agis was now more ready to listen to them. At his suggestion they sent envoys to Lacedaemon in the hope of coming to terms.