the
enemy advanced into the plain against the troops of Agis, they might
fall upon his rear with their cavalry. These dispositions concluded,
Agis invaded the plain and began to ravage Saminthus and other places.

Discovering this, the Argives came up from Nemea, day having now
dawned. On their way they fell in with the troops of the Phliasians and
Corinthians, and killed a few of the Phliasians and had perhaps a
few more of their own men killed by the Corinthians. Meanwhile the
Boeotians, Megarians, and Sicyonians, advancing upon Nemea according to
their instructions, found the Argives no longer there, as they had gone
down on seeing their property ravaged, and were now forming for battle,
the Lacedaemonians imitating their example. The Argives were now
completely surrounded; from the plain the Lacedaemonians and their
allies shut them off from their city; above them were the Corinthians,
Phliasians, and Pellenians; and on the side of Nemea the Boeotians,
Sicyonians, and Megarians. Meanwhile their army was without cavalry, the
Athenians alone among the allies not having yet arrived. Now the bulk of
the Argives and their allies did not see the danger of their position,
but thought that they could not have a fairer field, having intercepted
the Lacedaemonians in their own country and close to the city. Two men,
however, in the Argive army, Thrasylus, one of the five generals, and
Alciphron, the Lacedaemonian proxenus, just as the armies were upon the
point of engaging, went and held a parley with Agis and urged him not to
bring on a battle, as the Argives were ready to refer to fair and equal
arbitration whatever complaints the Lacedaemonians might have against
them, and to make a treaty and live in peace in future.

The Argives who made these statements did so upon their own authority,
not by order of the people, and Agis on his accepted their proposals,
and without himself either consulting the majority, simply communicated
the matter to a single individual, one of the high officers accompanying
the expedition, and granted the Argives a truce for four months, in
which to fulfil their promises; after which he immediately led off the
army without giving any explanation to any of the other allies. The
Lacedaemonians and allies followed their general out of respect for the
law, but amongst themselves loudly blamed Agis for going away from so
fair a field (the enemy being hemmed in on every side by infantry and
cavalry) wi