Individual: Alliance_Athens_Argos_462-461_BC
- "The Lacedaemonians meanwhile finding the war against the rebels in Ithome likely to last, invoked the aid of their allies, and especially of the Athenians, who came in some force under the command of Cimon. The reason for this pressing summons lay in their reputed skill in siege operations; a long siege had taught the Lacedaemonians their own deficiency in this art, else they would have taken the place by assault. The first open quarrel between the Lacedaemonians and Athenians arose out of this expedition. The Lacedaemonians, when assault failed to take the place, apprehensive of the enterprising and revolutionary character of the Athenians, and further looking upon them as of alien extraction, began to fear that if they remained, they might be tempted by the besieged in Ithome to attempt some political changes. They accordingly dismissed them alone of the allies, without declaring their suspicions, but merely saying that they had now no need of them. But the Athenians, aware that their dismissal did not proceed from the more honorable reason of the two, but from suspicions which had been conceived, went away deeply offended, and conscious of having done nothing to merit such treatment from the Lacedaemonians; and the instant that they returned home they broke off the alliance which had been made against the Mede, and allied themselves with Sparta's enemy Argos; each of the contracting parties taking the same oaths and making the same alliance with the Thessalians.
Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War. London, J. M. Dent; New York, E. P. Dutton. 1910.
http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0003.tlg001.perseus-eng3:1.102.1-4" @en
- "Λακεδαιμόνιοι δέ, ὡς αὐτοῖς πρὸς τοὺς ἐν Ἰθώμῃ ἐμηκύνετο ὁ πόλεμος, ἄλλους τε ἐπεκαλέσαντο ξυμμάχους καὶ Ἀθηναίους: οἱ δ᾽ ἦλθον Κίμωνος στρατηγοῦντος πλήθει οὐκ ὀλίγῳ. μάλιστα δ᾽ αὐτοὺς ἐπεκαλέσαντο ὅτι τειχομαχεῖν ἐδόκουν δυνατοὶ εἶναι, τοῖς δὲ πολιορκίας μακρᾶς καθεστηκυίας τούτου ἐνδεᾶ ἐφαίνετο: βίᾳ γὰρ ἂν εἷλον τὸ χωρίον. καὶ διαφορὰ ἐκ ταύτης τῆς στρατείας πρῶτον Λακεδαιμονίοις καὶ Ἀθηναίοις φανερὰ ἐγένετο. οἱ γὰρ Λακεδαιμόνιοι, ἐπειδὴ τὸ χωρίον βίᾳ οὐχ ἡλίσκετο, δείσαντες τῶν Ἀθηναίων τὸ τολμηρὸν καὶ τὴν νεωτεροποιίαν, καὶ ἀλλοφύλους ἅμα ἡγησάμενοι, μή τι, ἢν παραμείνωσιν, ὑπὸ τῶν ἐν Ἰθώμῃ πεισθέντες νεωτερίσωσι, μόνους τῶν ξυμμάχων ἀπέπεμψαν, τὴν μὲν ὑποψίαν οὐ δηλοῦντες, εἰπόντες δὲ ὅτι οὐδὲν προσδέονται αὐτῶν ἔτι. οἱ δ᾽ Ἀθηναῖοι ἔγνωσαν οὐκ ἐπὶ τῷ βελτίονι λόγῳ ἀποπεμπόμενοι, ἀλλά τινος ὑπόπτου γενομένου, καὶ δεινὸν ποιησάμενοι καὶ οὐκ ἀξιώσαντες ὑπὸ Λακεδαιμονίων τοῦτο παθεῖν, εὐθὺς ἐπειδὴ ἀνεχώρησαν, ἀφέντες τὴν γενομένην ἐπὶ τῷ Μήδῳ ξυμμαχίαν πρὸς αὐτοὺς Ἀργείοις τοῖς ἐκείνων πολεμίοις ξύμμαχοι ἐγένοντο, καὶ πρὸς Θεσσαλοὺς ἅμα ἀμφοτέροις οἱ αὐτοὶ ὅρκοι καὶ ξυμμαχία κατέστη.
Thucydides. Historiae in two volumes. Oxford, Oxford University Press. 1942.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0003.tlg001.perseus-grc1:1.102.1-4" @grc