d has been also written by the same Thucydides,
an Athenian, in the chronological order of events by summers and
winters, to the time when the Lacedaemonians and their allies put an end
to the Athenian empire, and took the Long Walls and Piraeus. The war had
then lasted for twenty-seven years in all. Only a mistaken judgment can
object to including the interval of treaty in the war. Looked at by the
light of facts it cannot, it will be found, be rationally considered
a state of peace, where neither party either gave or got back all that
they had agreed, apart from the violations of it which occurred on both
sides in the Mantinean and Epidaurian wars and other instances, and
the fact that the allies in the direction of Thrace were in as open
hostility as ever, while the Boeotians had only a truce renewed every
ten days. So that the first ten years' war, the treacherous armistice
that followed it, and the subsequent war will, calculating by the
seasons, be found to make up the number of years which I have mentioned,
with the difference of a few days, and to afford an instance of faith
in oracles being for once justified by the event. I certainly all along
remember from the beginning to the end of the war its being commonly
declared that it would last thrice nine years. I lived through the whole
of it, being of an age to comprehend events, and giving my attention to
them in order to know the exact truth about them. It was also my fate
to be an exile from my country for twenty years after my command at
Amphipolis; and being present with both parties, and more especially
with the Peloponnesians by reason of my exile, I had leisure to observe
affairs somewhat particularly. I will accordingly now relate the
differences that arose after the ten years' war, the breach of the
treaty, and the hostilities that followed.

After the conclusion of the fifty years' truce and of the subsequent
alliance, the embassies from Peloponnese which had been summoned for
this business returned from Lacedaemon. The rest went straight home, but
the Corinthians first turned aside to Argos and opened negotiations with
some of the men in office there, pointing out that Lacedaemon could have
no good end in view, but only the subjugation of Peloponnese, or she
would never have entered into treaty and alliance with the once detested
Athenians, and that the duty of consulting for the safety of Peloponnese
had now fallen upon Argos, who should immediately p