History of the Peloponnesian War

But when the Athenians had met defeat at Amphipolis also and both Cleon and Brasidas had been killed—the men who on either side had been most opposed to peace, the one because of his success and the reputation he had derived from the war, the other because he thought if quiet were restored he would be more manifest in his villainies and less credited in his calumnies—then it was that Pleistoanax son of Pausanias, king of the Lacedaemonians, and Nicias son of Niceratus, who had been of all the generals of his day most successful in his commands—men who had most zealously supported the cause of peace each in the interest of his own state—urged this course with greater zeal than ever. Nicias wished, while his record was still free from disaster and he was held in esteem, to preserve his good luck to the end, and not only at present both to rest from toil himself and to give his fellow-citizens a rest, but also to hand down to after times a name as of one who had lived his life through without injuring the state; and he thought that a man might achieve such a result by keeping out of danger and by least exposing himself to the caprices of fortune, and that it was peace only that offered freedom from danger. Pleistoanax, on the other hand, was for peace, because he was constantly maligned by his enemies about his return from exile, and because, whenever any reverses occurred, he was always spitefully recalled to their thoughts by these persons as though these misfortunes were due to his illegal restoration.

For they charged that he, along with his brother Aristocles, had bribed the priestess at Delphi constantly to answer the Lacedaemonians, whenever they came to consult the oracle: “Bring back the seed of the demigod, son of Zeus, from the foreign land to your own; otherwise you shall plough with a silver plough-share”[*](ie. as the schol. explains, there would be a pestilence, and they would buy food at a very high price, as it were using silver tools.);

and that in course of time she had induced the Lacedaemonians to bring him back from banishment in the twentieth year[*](427 B.C. since he had left the country in 446. cf. 1.114.2 and 2.21.1.) with like dances and sacrifices as when at the founding of Lacedaemon they had first enthroned their kings. For he had fled for refuge to Mt. Lycaeum,[*](A mountain in Arcadia on which was an ancient sanctuary of Zeus.) on account of his retreat from Attica, that was thought to be due to bribery, and through fear of the Lacedaemonians had occupied at that time a house whereof the half was within the sanctuary of Zeus.