History of the Peloponnesian War

In the beginning of winter (for now there were other ephores in office; not those in whose time the peace was made, but some of them that opposed it), ambassadors being come from the confederates, and the Athenian, Boeotian, and Corinthian ambassadors being [already] there, and having had much conference together but concluded nothing, Cleobulus and 36enares, ephores that most desired the dissolution of the peace, when the rest of the ambassadors were gone home, entered into private conference with the Boeotians and Corinthians, exhorting them to run both the same course; and advised the Boeotians to endeavour first to make a league themselves with the Argives and then to get the Argives together with themselves into a league with the Lacedaemonians, for that they might by this means avoid the necessity of accepting the peace with Athens; for the Lacedaemonians would more regard the friendship and league of the Argives than the enmity and dissolution of the peace with the Athenians; for they knew the Lacedaemonians had ever desired to have Argos their friend upon any reasonable conditions, because they knew that their war without Peloponnesus would thereby be a great deal the easier.

Wherefore they entreated the Boeotians to put Panactum into the hands of the Lacedaemonians, to the end that, if they could get Pylus for it in exchange, they might make war against the Athenians the more commodiously.

The Boeotians and Corinthians, being dismissed by 37enares and Cleobulus, and all the other Lacedaemonians of that faction, with these points to be delivered to their commonwealths, went to their several cities.

And two men of Argos, of principal authority in that city, having waited for and met with them by the way, entered into a treaty with them about a league between the Argives and the Boeotians as there was between them and the Corinthians and the Eleians and Mantineans already; for they thought, if it succeeded, they might [the more] easily have either war or peace (forasmuch as the cause would now be common), either with the Lacedaemonians or whomsoever else it should be needful. When the Boeotian ambassadors heard this, they were well pleased.

For as it chanced, the Argives requested the same things of them, that they by their friends in Lacedaemon had been sent to procure of the Argives. These men therefore of Argos, when they saw that the Boeotians accepted of the motion, promised to send ambassadors to the Boeotians about it, and so departed.

When the Boeotians were come home, they related there what they had heard both at Lacedaemon and by the way from the Argives. The governors of Boeotia were glad thereof, and much more forward in it now than formerly they had been, seeing that not only their friends in Lacedaemon desired, but the Argives themselves hastened to have done the self-same thing.

Not long after this the ambassadors came to them from Argos to solicit the dispatch of the business before propounded; but the governors of Boeotia commended [only] the proposition and dismissed them with promise to send ambassadors about the league to Argos.

In the meantime the governors of Boeotia thought fit that an oath should first be taken by themselves and by the ambassadors from Corinth, Megara, and the confederates upon Thrace to give mutual assistance upon any occasion to them that should require it and neither to make war nor peace without the common consent; and next that the Boeotians and Megareans (for these two ran the same course) should make a league with the Argives.