History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides

Thucydides. The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. Hobbes, Thomas. translator. London: John Bohn, 1843.

Having thus spoken, being himself Ephor, he put it to the question in the assembly of the Lacedaemonians;

and saying afterwards that he could not discern whether was the greater cry (for they used there to give their votes viva voce and not with balls) and desiring that it might be evident that their minds were inclined most to the war, he put it unto them again and said, to whomsoever of you it seemeth that the peace is broken and that the Athenians have done unjustly, let him arise and go yonder, and withal he showed them a certain place, and to whomsoever it seemeth otherwise, let him go to the other side.

So they arose and the room was divided, wherein far the greater number were those that held the peace to be broken.

Then calling in the confederates they told them that for their own parts their sentence was that the Athenians had done them wrong; but yet they desired to have all their confederates called together, and then to put it to the question again that if they would, the war might be decreed by common consent.

This done, their confederates went home; and so did also afterwards the Athenians when they had dispatched the business they came about.

This decree of the assembly that the peace was broken was made in the fourteenth year of those thirty years for which a peace had been formerly concluded after the actions past in Euboea.