History of the Peloponnesian War

For let him [*]( On this use of διήρηται, see Poppo or Bloomfield.—With regard to the τέ in this clause, it is the opinion of Göller that it refers to καὶ before εὑρήσει: but Poppo observes in opposition to this, that the imperative ἀθρείτω has a conditional force, as it frequently has in Greek, Latin, German, and French: si quis spectaverit, inveniet; and therefore that τέ has no force. Arnold and Bloomfield consider that it is answered by ἔξω τε τούτων. First of all, the treaty was in itself practically inefficient, inasmuch as its very stipulations were not all fulfilled; and then there were mutual causes of complaint with respect to other matters of which the treaty had made no mention. ) regard it as it is characterized by the facts of the case, and he will find that there is no reason for its being deemed a state of peace; since during it they neither gave nor received back all they had arranged to do; and besides this, there were offences committed on both sides, as in the case of the Mantinean and Epidaurian wars, and other instances; and the Thrace-ward allies were in no respect less at war than before; while the Boeeotians had only a truce from one ten days to another.

Including, therefore, the first war of ten years, the suspicious cessation of hostilities which followed it, and the subsequent war which succeeded to that, any one will find that the number of years was what I have mentioned, (reckoning by the great divisions of time,) with only a few days' difference; and that such as positively asserted any thing on the strength of oracles, found this the only fact which proved true.

At least I, for my own part, remember that all along, both at the beginning of the war, and till it was brought to a conclusion, it was alleged by many that it was to last thrice nine years.