History of the Peloponnesian War

"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.

"It seemeth good to the Lacedaemonians and Argives to make league and alliance for fifty years on these articles: "That either side shall allow unto the other equal and like trials of judgment, after the form used in their cities. "That the rest of the cities of Peloponnesus (this league and alliance comprehending also them) shall be free both from the laws and payments of any other city than their own, holding what they have and affording equal and like trials of judgment according to the form used in their several cities.

"That every of the cities confederate with the Lacedaemonians, without Peloponnesus, shall be in the same condition with the Lacedaemonians; and the confederates of the Argives in the same with the Argives, every one holding his own.

"That if at any time there shall need an expedition to be taken in common, the Lacedaemonians and the Argives shall consult thereof and decree as shall stand most with equity towards the confederates.