So in the passage here before us, περιορώμενοι seems the passive participle in this sense. Thucydidês, having just described an energetic remonstrance sent by the Spartans to prevent Corinth from joining Argos, means to intimate (by the words here in discussion) that no similar interference was resorted to by them to prevent the Bœotians and Megarians from joining her: “The Bœotians and Megarians remained as they were, left to themselves by the Lacedæmonians, and thinking the Argeian democracy less suitable to them than the oligarchy of Sparta.”
[28] Thucyd. v, 31. Καὶ μέχρι τοῦ Ἀττικοῦ πολέμου ἀπέφερον· ἔπειτα παυσαμένων διὰ πρόφασιν τοῦ πολέμου, οἱ Ἠλεῖοι ἐπηνάγκαζον, οἱ δ’ ἐτράποντο πρὸς τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους.
For the agreement here alluded to, see a few lines forward.
[29] Thucyd. v, 31. τὴν ξυνθήκην προφέροντες ἐν ᾗ εἴρητο, ἃ ἔχοντες ἐς τὸν Ἀττικὸν πόλεμον καθίσταντό τινες, ταῦτα ἔχοντας καὶ ἐξελθεῖν, ὡς οὐκ ἴσον ἔχοντες ἀφίστανται, etc.
Of the agreement here alluded to among the members of the Peloponnesian confederacy, we hear only in this one passage. It was extremely important to such of the confederates as were imperial cities; that is, which had subordinates or subject-allies.
Poppo and Bloomfield wonder that the Corinthians did not appeal to this agreement in order to procure the restitution of Sollium and Anaktorium. But they misconceive the scope of the agreement, which did not relate to captures made during the war by the common enemy. It would be useless for the confederacy to enter into a formal agreement that none of the members should lose anything through capture made by the enemy. This would be a question of superiority of force, for no agreement could bind the enemy. But the confederacy might very well make a covenant among themselves, as to the relations between their own imperial immediate members, and the mediate or subordinate dependencies of each. Each imperial state consented to forego the tribute or services of its dependency, so long as the latter was called upon to lend its aid in the general effort of the confederacy against the common enemy. But the confederacy at the same time gave its guarantee, that the imperial state should reënter upon these suspended rights, so soon as the war should be at an end. This guarantee was clearly violated by Sparta in the case of Elis and Lepreum. On the contrary, in the case of Mantineia, mentioned a few pages back, p. 19, the Mantineians had violated the maxim of the confederacy, and Sparta was justified in interfering at the request of their subjects to maintain the autonomy of the latter.
[30] Thucyd. v, 32. Κορινθίοις δὲ ἀνακωχὴ ἄσπονδος ἦν πρὸς Ἀθηναίους.
Upon which Dr. Arnold remarks: “By ἄσπονδος is meant a mere agreement in words, not ratified by the solemnities of religion. And the Greeks, as we have seen, considered the breach of their word very different from the breach of their oath.”
Not so much is here meant even as that which Dr. Arnold supposes. There was no agreement at all, either in words or by oath. There was a simple absence of hostilities, de facto, not arising out of any recognized pledge. Such is the meaning of ἀνακωχὴ, i, 66; iii, 25, 26.
The answer here made by the Athenians to the application of Corinth is not easy to understand. They might, with much better reason, have declined to conclude the ten day’s armistice with the Bœotians, because these latter still remained allies of Sparta, though refusing to accede to the general peace; whereas the Corinthians, having joined Argos, had less right to be considered allies of Sparta. Nevertheless, we shall still find them attending the meetings at Sparta, and acting as allies of the latter.