History of the Peloponnesian War

"And for so much as concerneth the god, the Argives shall accept composition with the Epidaurians, upon an oath which they shall swear, touching that controversy;

and the Argives shall give the form of that oath. "All the cities of Peloponnesus, both small and great, shall be free according to their patrial laws.

"If any without Peloponnesus shall enter into it to do it harm, the Argives shall come forth to defend the same, in such sort as in a common council shall by the Peloponnesians be thought reasonable.

"The confederates of the Lacedaemonians without Peloponnesus shall have the same conditions which the confederates of the Argives and of the Lacedaemonians have, every one holding his own. "This composition is to hold from the time that they shall both parts have showed the same to their confederates and obtained their consent.

And if it shall seem good to either part to add or alter anything, their confederates shall be sent unto and made acquainted therewith.

These propositions the Argives accepted at first; and the army of the Lacedaemonians returned from Tegea to their own city. But shortly after, when they had commerce together, the same men went further, and so wrought that the Argives, renouncing their league with the Mantineans, Eleians, and Athenians, made league and alliance with the Lacedaemonians in this form.