History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides

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

"And if anything be on either side forgotten, or shall be thought fit upon good deliberation to be changed, it shall be lawful for them to do it, in such manner as the Lacedaemonians and Athenians shall think fit, jointly.

"This peace shall take beginning from the 24th of the month Artemisium, Pleistolas being ephore at Sparta, and the 5th of Elaphebolium, after the account of Athens, Alcaeus being archon.

They that took the oath and sacrificed, were these. Of the Lacedaemonians: Pleistolas, Damagetus, Chionis, Metagenes, Acanthus, Daidus, Ischagoras, Philocaridas, Zeuxidas, Anthippus, Tellis, Alcinidas, Empedias, Menas, Laphilus. Of the Athenians these: Lampon, Isthmionicus, Nicias, Laches, Euthydemus, Procles, Pythodorus, Hagnon, Myrtilus, Thrasycles, Theagenes, Aristocrates, Iolcius, Timocrates, Leon, Lamachus, Demosthenes.

This peace was made in the very end of winter and the spring then beginning presently after the City Bacchanals and [full] ten years and some few days over after the first invasion of Attica and the beginning of this war.

But now for the certainty hereof, let a man consider the times themselves and not trust to the account of the names of such as in the several places bare chief offices or for some honour to themselves had their names ascribed for marks to the actions foregoing. For it is not exactly known who was in the beginning of his office, or who in the midst, or how he was, when anything fell out.

But if one reckon the same by summers and winters, according as they are written, he shall find by the two half years which make the whole, that this first war was of ten summers and as many winters continuance.