I have given in the text what I believe to be the meaning of the words ὑποφέρειν τοὺς μῆνας,—upon which Schneider has a long and not very instructive note, adopting an untenable hypothesis of Dodwell, that the Argeians on this occasion appealed to the sanctity of the Isthmian truce; which is not countenanced by anything in Xenophon, and which it belonged to the Corinthians to announce, not to the Argeians. The plural τοὺς μῆνας indicates (as Weiske and Manso understand it) that the Argeians sometimes put forward the name of one festival, sometimes of another. We may be pretty sure that the Karneian festival was one of them; but what the others were, we cannot tell. It is very probable that there were several festivals of common obligation either among all the Dorians, or between Sparta and Argos—πατρῴους τινας σπονδὰς ἐκ παλαιοῦ καθεστώσας τοῖς Δωριεῦσι πρὸς ἀλλήλους,—to use the language of Pausanias (iii, 5, 6). The language of Xenophon implies that the demand made by the Argeians, for observance of the Holy Truce, was in itself rightful, or rather, that it would have been rightful at a different season; but that they put themselves in the wrong by making it at an improper season and for a fraudulent political purpose.
For some remarks on other fraudulent manœuvres of the Argeians, respecting the season of the Karneian truce, see Vol. VII. of this History, Ch. lvi, p. 66. The compound verb ὑποφέρειν τοὺς μῆνας seems to imply the underhand purpose with which the Argeians preferred their demand of the truce. What were the previous occasions on which they had preferred a similar demand, we are not informed. Two years before, Agesilaus had invaded and laid waste Argos; perhaps they may have tried, but without success, to arrest his march by a similar pious fraud.
It is to this proceeding, perhaps, that Andokides alludes (Or. iii, De Pace, s. 27), where he says that the Argeians, though strenuous in insisting that Athens should help them to carry on the war for the possession of Corinth against the Lacedæmonians, had nevertheless made a separate peace with the latter, covering their own Argeian territory from invasion—αὐτοὶ δ᾽ ἰδίᾳ εἰρήνην ποιησάμενοι τὴν χώραν οὐ παρέχουσιν ἐμπολεμεῖν. Of this obscure passage I can give no better explanation.
[677] Aristotel. Rhetoric, ii, 23. Ἡγήσιππος ἐν Δελφοῖς ἐπηρώτα τὸν θεόν, κεχρημένος πρότερον Ὀλυμπιᾶσιν, εἰ αὐτῷ ταὐτὰ δοκεῖ, ἅπερ τῷ πατρί, ὡς αἰσχρὸν ὂν τἀναντία εἰπεῖν.
A similar story about the manner of putting the question to Apollo at Delphi, after it had already been put to Zeus at Dodona, is told about Agesilaus on another occasion (Plutarch, Apophth. Lacon. p. 208 F.).
[678] Xen. Hellen. iv, 7, 7; Pausan. iii, 5, 6.
It rather seems, by the language of these two writers, that they look upon the menacing signs, by which Agesipolis was induced to depart, as marks of some displeasure of the gods against his expedition.
[679] Xen. Hellen. iv, 8, 12. Compare Isokrates, Or. vii, (Areopag.) s. 13. ἁπάσης γὰρ τῆς Ἑλλάδος ὑπὸ τὴν πόλιν ἡμῶν ὑποπεσούσης καὶ μετὰ τὴν Κόνωνος ναυμαχίαν καὶ μετὰ τὴν Τιμοθέου στρατηγίαν, etc. This oration, however, was composed a long while after the events (about B.C. 353—see Mr. Clinton’s Fast. H., in that year); and Isokrates exaggerates; mistaking the break-up of the Lacedæmonian empire for a resumption of the Athenian. Demosthenes also (cont. Leptin. c. 16, p. 477) confounds the same two ideas, and even the Athenian vote of thanks to Konon, perpetuated on a commemorative column, countenanced the same impression,—ἐπειδὴ Κόνων ἠλευθέρωσε τοὺς Ἀθηναίων συμμάχους, etc.
[680] Plutarch, Artaxerx. c. 22.
[681] Xen. Hellen. iv, 8, 12-14.