History of the Peloponnesian War

About the same time during this summer, the Athenians reduced the Scionaeans by siege, slew the adult males,[*](In accordance with the decree moved by Cleon two years before (4.122.6). At the conclusion of peace they had been left at the mercy of the Athenians (5.18.8).) made slaves of the women and children, and gave the land to the Plataeans to occupy; and they brought back the Delians to Delos,[*](cf. ch. i.) taking to heart their mishaps in the battles[*](At Delium and Amphipolis.) and obeying an oracle of the god at Delphi.

Meanwhile the Phocians and the Locrians began hostilities.

And the Corinthians and the Argives, being now allies, came to Tegea,[*](It had always maintained an independent position in Arcadia, and in earlier times had been a powerful opponent Of Sparta.) hoping to induce it to revolt from the Lacedaemonians, seeing that it was an important part of the Peloponnesus, and thinking if it should be gained to their side they would soon have the whole Peloponnesus.

But when the Tegeates refused to oppose the Lacedaemonians, the Corinthians, who up to that time had been working zealously, became slack in their ardour and full of dread that none of the other Peloponnesians would henceforth come over to them.

Nevertheless they went to the Boeotians and requested them to become allies of themselves and the Argives, and to act generally in concert with them. And the Corinthians further requested the Boeotians to accompany them to Athens and procure for them also the ten days' truce[*](ie. a truce which had to be renewed every ten days; or, perhaps, “terminable at ten days' notice,” as Jowett thinks. cf. 5.26.3.) which had been made between the Athenians and Boeotians not long after the conclusion of the fifty years' treaty, on the same terms as the Boeotians had obtained, and, if the Athenians did not agree, to renounce the armistice and for the future to make no truce without the Corinthians.

The Boeotians, when the Corinthians made these requests, desired them to wait awhile in regard to the Argive alliance, but they went with them to Athens, where however they failed to obtain the ten days' truce, the Athenians answering them that there was already a truce with the Corinthians, if they were allies of the Lacedaemonians.

But the Boeotians did not any the more give up the ten days' truce, although the Corinthians demanded it and accused them of having agreed with themselves to do so. Between the Corinthians, however, and the Athenians there was a cessation of activities without an actual truce.