History of the Peloponnesian War

and the Lacedaemonians on the other side did desire peace because the war had not proceeded as they expected; for they had thought they should in a few years have warred down the power of Athens by wasting their territory; and because they were fallen into that calamity in the island, the like whereof had never happened unto Sparta before; because also their country was continually ravaged by those of Pylus and Cythera, and their Helotes continually fled to the enemy; and because they feared lest those which remained, trusting in them that were run away, should in this estate of theirs raise some innovation, as at other times before they had done.

Withal it happened that the thirty years' peace with the Argives was now upon the point of expiring; and the Argives would not renew it without restitution made them of Cynuria; so that to war against the Argives and the Athenians, both at once, seemed impossible. They suspected also that some of the cities of Peloponnesus would revolt to the Argives, as indeed it came afterwards to pass.