History of the Peloponnesian War

but they would try to bring the Boeotians and Corinthians into the treaty and to get back Panactum, and would recover all Athenian prisoners that were in the hands of the Boeotians. Pylos, however, they insisted the Athenians should restore to them;

or at any rate, they should withdraw the Messenians and the Helots, as they themselves had withdrawn their troops from Thrace, and the Athenians themselves might garrison the place if they wished. After many and frequent conferences had been held during this summer, they persuaded the Athenians to withdraw from Pylos the Messenians, the rest of the Helots, and all who had deserted from Laconia;

and these the Athenians settled at Cranii in Cephallenia. This summer, then, there was peace and mutual intercourse.

The following winter the ephors who[*](421-420 B.C.) happened to be in office at Sparta were other than those under whom the treaty had been made, and some of them were even opposed to it. Embassies had come from their allies, and there were present also Athenians, Boeotians, and Corinthians; and after much discussion, without coming to an agreement, as the envoys were on the point of departing for home, Cleobulus and Xenares, the ephors who most desired to annul the treaty, made private proposals to the Boeotians and Corinthians, advising them to adopt as far as possible the same policy, and that the Boeotians should first become allies of the Argives and then try to make the Argives along with themselves allies of the Lacedaemonians. For in this way the Boeotians would be least likely to be forced to come into the treaty with Athens, since the Lacedaemonians would prefer gaining the friendship and alliance of the Argives, counting that more important than the enmity of the Athenians and the disruption of the treaty. For they knew that the Lacedaemonians were always desirous that Argos should be friendly to them on fair terms, thinking that war outside of the Peloponnesus would then be an easier matter

for them. Panactum, however, they begged the Boeotians to give up to the Lacedaemonians, in order that they might, if possible, get back Pylos in exchange for it, and so be in a safer position for renewing the war with the Athenians.