History of the Peloponnesian War

They began therefore to negotiate immediately after their capture; but the Athenians, being so successful, would not yet make peace on fair terms. When, however, they had been defeated at Delium, immediately the Lacedaemonians, finding that they would now be more ready to accept their proposals, concluded the armistice for a year, during which they should meet together, and consult respecting a treaty for a longer period.

And when, moreover, the defeat at Amphipolis had befallen the Athenians, and Cleon and Brasidas were dead, who on each side were most opposed to the cause of peace-the one, because he was successful and honoured in consequence of the war; the other, because he thought, that if tranquillity were secured, he would be more easily detected in his evil practices, and less believed in his calumniations-then the individuals who in either country were most desirous of taking the lead, namely, Pleistoanax son of Pausanias, king of the Lacedaemonians, and Nicias son of Niceratus, who of all his contemporaries was most generally successful in his military commands, were much more anxious for peace than ever. Nicias was so, because he wished, while he had met with no disaster, and was in high repute, permanently to secure his good fortune; and both at present to obtain a respite from troubles himself and give his countrymen the same, and to hand down to futurity a name for having continued to the end without subjecting the state to any disaster; and he thought that such a result is secured by freedom from danger, and by a man's committing himself as little as possible to fortune, and that such freedom from danger is afforded by peace. Pleistoanax, on the other hand, took the same view, because he was calumniated by his enemies on the subject of his restoration, and was continually being brought forward by them as the object of religious scruple on the part of the Lacedaemonians, whenever they met with any defeat; as though it were owing to his illegal restoration that these things befell them.