History of the Peloponnesian War

It happened too, immediately after the battle of Amphipolis and the retreat of Ramphias from Thessaly, that neither party any longer applied themselves at all to the war, but they were rather inclined for peace. The Athenians were so, as having received a severe blow at Delium, and again shortly after at Amphipolis; and as no longer having that confident hope in their strength, through which they would not before accept the offered treaty, thinking, in consequence of their present success, that they should come off victorious in the struggle.

Besides, they were also afraid of their allies, lest they should be encouraged by their reverses to revolt on a larger scale; and they repented not having come to an arrangement, when they had a fine opportunity, after the events at Pylus.

The Lacedaemonians, on the other hand, wished for peace, because they found protracted beyond their expectation those hostilities by which they imagined that in a few years they should reduce the power of the Athenians, if they ravaged their land; and because they had met with the disaster on the island—such as had never yet befallen Sparta: and in consequence of their country being plundered from Pylus and Cythera; while their helots also were deserting, and there was a constant apprehension lest even those that remained in the country, trusting in the support of those who were out of it, should, on the strength of the present state of things, adopt some revolutionary designs against them, as on a former occasion.

It happened, too, that their thirty years' truce with the Argives was on the point of expiring, and the Argives would not renew it, unless the Cynurian territory were restored to them; so that it appeared impossible for them to carry on war at once with the Argives and Athenians. Besides, they suspected that some of the states in the Peloponnese would revolt from them to the Argives; as was really the case.