s at revolution. Besides this, as
chance would have it, her thirty years' truce with the Argives was upon
the point of expiring; and they refused to renew it unless Cynuria were
restored to them; so that it seemed impossible to fight Argos and
Athens at once. She also suspected some of the cities in Peloponnese of
intending to go over to the enemy and that was indeed the case.

These considerations made both sides disposed for an accommodation; the
Lacedaemonians being probably the most eager, as they ardently desired
to recover the men taken upon the island, the Spartans among whom
belonged to the first families and were accordingly related to the
governing body in Lacedaemon. Negotiations had been begun directly after
their capture, but the Athenians in their hour of triumph would not
consent to any reasonable terms; though after their defeat at Delium,
Lacedaemon, knowing that they would be now more inclined to listen,
at once concluded the armistice for a year, during which they were to
confer together and see if a longer period could not be agreed upon.

Now, however, after the Athenian defeat at Amphipolis, and the death of
Cleon and Brasidas, who had been the two principal opponents of peace on
either side--the latter from the success and honour which war gave him,
the former because he thought that, if tranquillity were restored,
his crimes would be more open to detection and his slanders less
credited--the foremost candidates for power in either city, Pleistoanax,
son of Pausanias, king of Lacedaemon, and Nicias, son of Niceratus, the
most fortunate general of his time, each desired peace more ardently
than ever. Nicias, while still happy and honoured, wished to secure his
good fortune, to obtain a present release from trouble for himself and
his countrymen, and hand down to posterity a name as an ever-successful
statesman, and thought the way to do this was to keep out of danger and
commit himself as little as possible to fortune, and that peace alone
made this keeping out of danger possible. Pleistoanax, again, was
assailed by his enemies for his restoration, and regularly held up by
them to the prejudice of his countrymen, upon every reverse that befell
them, as though his unjust restoration were the cause; the accusation
being that he and his brother Aristocles had bribed the prophetess of
Delphi to tell the Lacedaemonian deputations which successively arrived
at the temple to bring home the seed of the dem