To maintain the autonomy of all the little states, and prevent any of them from being mediatized or grouped into aggregations under the ascendency of the greater, had been the general policy of Sparta; especially since her own influence as general leader was increased by insuring to every lesser state a substantive vote at the meetings of the confederacy.[23] Moreover, the rivalry of Tegea would probably operate here as an auxiliary motive against Mantineia. Under such apprehensions, the Mantineians hastened to court the alliance and protection of Argos, with whom they enjoyed the additional sympathy of a common democracy. Such revolt from Sparta[24] (for so it was considered) excited great sensation throughout Peloponnesus, together with considerable disposition, amidst the discontent then prevalent, to follow the example.
In particular, it contributed much to enhance the importance of the congress at Corinth; whither the Lacedæmonians thought it necessary to send special envoys to counteract the intrigues going on against them. Their envoy addressed to the Corinthians strenuous remonstrance, and even reproach, for the leading part which they had taken in stirring up dissension among the old confederates, and organizing a new confederacy under the presidency of Argos. “They (the Corinthians) were thus aggravating the original guilt and perjury which they had committed by setting at nought the formal vote of a majority of the confederacy, and refusing to accept the peace,—for it was the sworn and fundamental maxim of the confederacy, that the decision of the majority should be binding on all, except in such cases as involved some offence to gods or heroes.” Encouraged by the presence of many sympathizing deputies, Bœotian, Megarian, Chalkidian from Thrace,[25] etc., the Corinthians replied with firmness. But they did not think it good policy to proclaim their real ground for rejecting the peace, namely, that it had not procured for themselves the restoration of Sollium and Anaktorium: since, first, this was a question in which their allies present had no interest; next, it did not furnish any valid excuse for their resistance to the vote of the majority. Accordingly, they took their stand upon a pretence at once generous and religious; upon that reserve for religious scruples, which the Lacedæmonian envoy had himself admitted, and which of course was to be construed by each member with reference to his own pious feeling. “It was a religious impediment (the Corinthians contended) which prevented us from acceding to the peace with Athens, notwithstanding the vote of the majority; for we had previously exchanged oaths, ourselves apart from the confederacy, with the Chalkidians of Thrace at the time when they revolted from Athens: and we should have infringed those separate oaths, had we accepted a treaty of peace in which these Chalkidians were abandoned. As for alliance with Argos, we consider ourselves free to adopt any resolution which we may deem suitable, after consultation with our friends here present.” With this unsatisfactory answer the Lacedæmonian envoys were compelled to return home. Yet some Argeian envoys, who were also present in the assembly for the purpose of urging the Corinthians to realize forthwith the hopes of alliance which they had held out to Argos, were still unable on their side to obtain a decided affirmative, being requested to come again at the next conference.[26]
Though the Corinthians had themselves originated the idea of the new Argeian confederacy and compromised Argos in an open proclamation, yet they now hesitated about the execution of their own scheme. They were restrained in part doubtless by the bitterness of Lacedæmonian reproof; for the open consummation of this revolt, apart from its grave political consequences, shocked a train of very old feelings; but still more by the discovery that their friends, who agreed with them in rejecting the peace, decidedly refused all open revolt from Sparta and all alliance with Argos. In this category were the Bœotians and Megarians. Both of these states—left to their own impression and judgment by the Lacedæmonians, who did not address to them any distinct appeal as they had done to the Corinthians—spontaneously turned away from Argos, not less from aversion towards the Argeian democracy than from sympathy with the oligarchy at Sparta:[27] they were linked together by communion of interest, not merely as being both neighbors and intense enemies of Attica, but as each having a body of democratical exiles who might perhaps find encouragement at Argos. Discouraged by the resistance of these two important allies, the Corinthians hung back from visiting Argos, until they were pushed forward by a new accidental impulse, the application of the Eleians; who, eagerly embracing the new project, sent envoys first to conclude alliance with the Corinthians, and next to go on and enroll Elis as an ally of Argos. This incident so confirmed the Corinthians in their previous scheme, that they speedily went to Argos, along with the Chalkidians of Thrace, to join the new confederacy.
The conduct of Elis, like that of Mantineia, in thus revolting from Sparta, had been dictated by private grounds of quarrel, arising out of relations with their dependent ally Lepreum. The Lepreates had become dependent on Elis some time before the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, in consideration of aid lent by the Eleians to extricate them from a dangerous war against some Arcadian enemies. To purchase such aid, they had engaged to cede to the Eleians half their territory; but had been left in residence and occupation of it, under the stipulation of paying one talent yearly as tribute to the Olympian Zeus; in other words, to the Eleians as his stewards. When the Peloponnesian war began,[28] and the Lacedæmonians began to call for the unpaid service of the Peloponnesian cities generally, small as well as great, against Athens, the Lepreates were, by the standing agreement of the confederacy, exempted for the time from continuing to pay their tribute to Elis. Such exemption ceased with the war; at the close of which Elis became entitled, under the same agreement, to resume the suspended tribute. She accordingly required that the payment should then be recommenced: but the Lepreates refused, and when she proceeded to apply force, threw themselves on the protection of Sparta, by whose decision the Eleians themselves at first agreed to abide, having the general agreement of the confederacy decidedly in their favor. But it presently appeared that Sparta was more disposed to carry out her general system of favoring the autonomy of the lesser states, than to enforce the positive agreement of the confederacy. Accordingly the Eleians, accusing her of unjust bias, renounced her authority as arbitrator, and sent a military force to occupy Lepreum. Nevertheless, the Spartans persisted in their adjudication, pronounced Lepreum to be autonomous, and sent a body of their own hoplites to defend it against the Eleians. The latter loudly protested against this proceeding, and pronounced the Lacedæmonians as having robbed them of one of their dependencies, contrary to that agreement which had been adopted by the general confederacy when the war began,—to the effect that each imperial city should receive back at the end of the war all the dependencies which it possessed at the beginning, on condition of waiving its title to tribute and military service from them so long as the war lasted. After fruitless remonstrances with Sparta, the Eleians eagerly embraced the opportunity now offered of revolting from her, and of joining the new league with Corinth and Argos.[29]
That new league, including Argos, Corinth, Elis, and Mantineia, had now acquired such strength and confidence, that the Argeians and Corinthians proceeded on a joint embassy to Tegea to obtain the junction of that city, seemingly the most powerful in Peloponnesus next to Sparta and Argos. What grounds they had for expecting success we are not told. The mere fact of Mantineia having joined Argos, seemed likely to deter Tegea, as the rival Arcadian power, from doing the same: and so it proved, for the Tegeans decidedly refused the proposal, not without strenuous protestations that they would stand by Sparta in everything. The Corinthians were greatly disheartened by this repulse, which they had by no means expected, having been so far misled by general expressions of discontent against Sparta as to believe that they could transfer nearly the whole body of confederates to Argos. But they now began to despair of all farther extension of Argeian headship, and even to regard their own position as insecure on the side of Athens; with whom they were not at peace, while by joining Argos they had forfeited their claim upon Sparta and all her confederacy, including Bœotia and Megara. In this embarrassment they betook themselves to the Bœotians, whom they again entreated to join them in the Argeian alliance: a request already once refused, and not likely to be now granted, but intended to usher in a different request preferred at the same time. The Bœotians were entreated to accompany the Corinthians to Athens, and obtain for them from the Athenians an armistice terminable at ten days’ notice, such as that which they had contracted for themselves. In case of refusal, they were farther entreated to throw up their own agreement, and to conclude no other without the concurrence of the Corinthians. So far the Bœotians complied, as to go to Athens with the Corinthians, and back their application for an armistice, which the Athenians declined to grant, saying that the Corinthians were already included in the general peace, if they were allies of Sparta. On receiving this answer the Corinthians entreated the Bœotians, putting it as a matter of obligation, to renounce their own armistice, and make common cause as to all future compact. But this request was steadily refused. The Bœotians maintained their ten days’ armistice; and the Corinthians were obliged to acquiesce in their existing condition of peace de facto, though not guaranteed by any pledge of Athens.[30]
Meanwhile the Lacedæmonians were not unmindful of the affront which they had sustained by the revolt of Mantineia and Elis. At the request of a party among the Parrhasii, the Arcadian subjects of Mantineia, they marched under king Pleistoanax into that territory, and compelled the Mantineians to evacuate the fort which they had erected within it; which the latter were unable to defend, though they received a body of Argeian troops to guard their city, and were thus enabled to march their whole force to the threatened spot. Besides liberating the Arcadian subjects of Mantineia, the Lacedæmonians also planted an additional body of Helots and Neodamodes at Lepreum, as a defence and means of observation on the frontiers of Elis.[31] These were the Brasidean soldiers, whom Klearidas had now brought back from Thrace. The Helots among them had been manumitted as a reward, and allowed to reside where they chose. But as they had imbibed lessons of bravery under their distinguished commander, their presence would undoubtedly be dangerous among the serfs of Laconia: hence the disposition of the Lacedæmonians to plant them out. We may recollect that not very long before, they had caused two thousand of the most soldierly Helots to be secretly assassinated, without any ground of suspicion against these victims personally, but simply from fear of the whole body and of course greater fear of the bravest.[32]
It was not only against danger from the returning Brasidean Helots that the Lacedæmonians had to guard, but also against danger—real or supposed—from their own Spartan captives, liberated by Athens at the conclusion of the recent alliance. Though the surrender of Sphakteria had been untarnished by any dishonor, nevertheless these men could hardly fail to be looked upon as degraded, in the eyes of Spartan pride; or at least they might fancy that they were so looked upon, and thus become discontented. Some of them were already in the exercise of various functions, when the ephors contracted suspicions of their designs, and condemned them all to temporary disqualification for any official post, placing the whole of their property under trust-management, and interdicting them, like minors, from every act either of purchase or sale.[33] This species of disfranchisement lasted for a considerable time; but the sufferers were at length relieved from it, the danger being supposed to be over. The nature of the interdict confirms, what we know directly from Thucydidês, that many of these captives were among the first and wealthiest families in the state, and the ephors may have apprehended that they would employ their wealth in acquiring partisans and organizing revolt among the Helots. We have no facts to enable us to appreciate the situation; but the ungenerous spirit of the regulation, as applied to brave warriors recently come home from a long imprisonment—justly pointed out by modern historians—would not weigh much with the ephors under any symptoms of public danger.
Of the proceedings of the Athenians during this summer we hear nothing, except that the town of Skiônê at length surrendered to them after a long-continued blockade, and that they put to death the male population of military age, selling the women and children into slavery. The odium of having proposed this cruel resolution two years and a half before, belongs to Kleon; that of executing it, nearly a year after his death, to the leaders who succeeded him, and to his countrymen generally. The reader will, however, now be sufficiently accustomed to the Greek laws of war not to be surprised at such treatment against subjects revolted and reconquered. Skiônê and its territory was made over to the Platæan refugees. The native population of Delos, also, who had been removed from that sacred spot during the preceding year, under the impression that they were too impure for the discharge of the sacerdotal functions, were now restored to their island. The subsequent defeat of Amphipolis had created a belief at Athens that this removal had offended the gods; under which impression, confirmed by the Delphian oracle, the Athenians now showed their repentance by restoring the Delian exiles.[34] They farther lost the towns of Thyssus on the peninsula of Athos, and Mekyberna on the Sithonian gulf, which were captured by the Chalkidians of Thrace.[35]
Meanwhile the political relations throughout the powerful Grecian states remained all provisional and undetermined. The alliance still subsisted between Sparta and Athens, yet with continual complaints on the part of the latter that the prior treaty remained unfulfilled. The members of the Spartan confederacy were discontented; some had seceded, and others seemed likely to do the same; while Argos, ambitious to supplant Sparta, was trying to put herself at the head of a new confederacy, though as yet with very partial success. Hitherto, however, the authorities of Sparta—king Pleistoanax as well as the ephors of the year—had been sincerely desirous to maintain the Athenian alliance, so far as it could be done without sacrifice, and without the real employment of force against recusants, of which they had merely talked in order to amuse the Athenians. Moreover, the prodigious advantage which they had gained by recovering the prisoners, doubtless making them very popular at home, would attach them the more firmly to their own measure. But at the close of the summer—seemingly about the end of September or beginning of October, B.C. 421—the year of these ephors expired, and new ephors were nominated for the ensuing year. Under the existing state of things this was an important revolution: for out of the five new ephors, two—Kleobûlus and Xenarês—were decidedly hostile to peace with Athens, and the remaining three apparently indifferent.[36] And we may here remark, that this fluctuation and instability of public policy, which is often denounced as if it were the peculiar attribute of a democracy, occurs quite as much under the constitutional monarchy of Sparta, the least popular government in Greece, both in principle and detail.
The new ephors convened a special congress at Sparta for the settlement of the pending differences, at which among the rest Athenian, Bœotian, and Corinthian envoys were all present. But, after prolonged debates, no approach was made to agreement; so that the congress was on the point of breaking up, when Kleobûlus and Xenarês, together with many of their partisans,[37] originated, in concert with the Bœotian and Corinthian deputies, a series of private underhand manœuvres for the dissolution of the Athenian alliance. This was to be effected by bringing about a separate alliance between Argos and Sparta, which the Spartans sincerely desired, and would grasp at in preference, so these ephors affirmed, even if it cost them the breach of their new tie with Athens. The Bœotians were urged, first to become allies of Argos themselves, and then to bring Argos into alliance with Sparta. But it was farther essential that they should give up Panaktum to Sparta, so that it might be tendered to the Athenians in exchange for Pylos; for Sparta could not easily go to war with them while they remained masters of the latter.[38]