History of the Peloponnesian War

They willed him to say further that they themselves also, if they had had the will to do wrong, had ere this made a league with the Argives, who were present then at Athens for the same purpose.

And whatsoever they had to accuse the Lacedaemonians of besides, they instructed Nicias in it and sent him and the other his fellow-ambassadors away. When they were arrived and had delivered what they had in charge, and this last of all, that the Athenians would make league with the Argives unless the Lacedaemonians would renounce their league with the Boeotians if the Boeotians accepted not the peace, the Lacedaemonians denied to renounce their league with the Boeotians; for 46enares, the ephore, and the rest of that faction carried it; but at the request of Nicias they renewed their former oath. For Nicias was afraid he should return with nothing done and be carped at (as after also it fell out) as author of the Lacedaemonian peace.

At his return, when the Athenians understood that nothing was effected at Lacedaemon, they grew presently into choler; and apprehending injury (the Argives and their confederates being there present, brought in by Alcibiades), they made a peace and a league with them in these words: