Hellenica

And when he returned in the fourth month, he reported in the Assembly that Lysander had detained him all this time and had then directed him to go to Lacedaemon, saying that he had no authority in the matters concerning which Theramenes asked for information, but only the ephors. After this Theramenes was chosen ambassador to Lacedaemon with[*](405 B.C.) full power, being at the head of an embassy of ten.

Lysander meanwhile sent Aristoteles, an Athenian exile, in company with some Lacedaemonians, to report to the ephors that the answer he had made to Theramenes was that they only had authority in the matter of peace and war.

Now when Theramenes and the other ambassadors were at Sellasia and, on being asked with what proposals they had come, replied that they had full power to treat for peace, the ephors thereupon gave orders to summon them to Lacedaemon. When they arrived, the ephors called an assembly, at which the Corinthians and Thebans in particular, though many other Greeks agreed with them, opposed making a treaty with the Athenians and favoured destroying their city.

The Lacedaemonians, however, said that they would not enslave a Greek city which had done great service amid the greatest perils that had befallen Greece,[*](i.e., the Persian wars.) and they offered to make peace on these conditions: that the Athenians should destroy the long walls and the walls of Piraeus, surrender all their ships except twelve, allow their exiles to return, count the same people friends and enemies as the Lacedaemonians did, and follow the Lacedaemonians both by land and by sea wherever they should lead the way.