Expedition of Alkibia interior of Pelopon nesus. Full of antipathy to Sparta, he regarded the interior of Peloponnesus as her most vulnerable point, especially in the present disjointed relations of its component cities. Moreover, his personal thirst for glory was better gratified amidst the centre of Grecian life than by undertaking an expedition into a distant and barbarous region: lastly, he probably recollected with discomfort the hardships and extreme cold (insupportable to all except the iron frame of Sokratês) which he had himself endured at the blockade of Potidea twelve years before', and which any armament destined to conquer Amphipolis would have to go through again. It was under these impressions that he now began to press his intra-Peloponnesian operations against Lacedæmon, with the view of organising a counter-alliance under Argos sufficient to keep her in check, and at any rate to nullify her power of carrying invasion beyond the isthmus. All this was to be done without ostensibly breaking the peace and alliance between Athens and Lacedæmon, which stood in conspicuous letters on pillars erected in both cities. Coming to Argos at the head of a few Athenian dês into the hoplites and bowmen, and reinforced by Peloponnesian allies, Alkibiadês exhibited the spectacle of an Athenian general traversing the interior of the peninsula, and imposing his own arrangements in various quarters-a spectacle at that moment new and striking. He first turned his attention to the 1 Plato, Symposion, c. 35. p. 220. δεινοὶ γὰρ αὔτοθι χειμώνες, πάγου οιου δεινοτάτου, &c. Thucyd. v. 52. Isokratês (De Bigis, sect. 17. p. 349) speaks of Achæan towns in the north-west, where he persuaded the inhabitants of Patræ to ally themselves with Athens, and even to undertake the labour of connecting their town with the sea by means of long walls; so as to place themselves within the protection of Athens from seaward. He farther projected the erection of a fort and the formation of a naval station at the extreme point of Cape Rhium, just at the narrow entrance of the Corinthian Gulf; whereby the Athenians, who already possessed the opposite shore by means of Naupaktus, would have become masters of the commerce of the gulf. But the Corinthians and Sikyonians, to whom this would have been a serious mischief, despatched forces enough to prevent the consummation of the scheme—and probably also to hinder the erection of the walls at Patræ'. Yet the march of Alkibiadês doubtless strengthened the anti-Laconian interest throughout the Achæan coast. upon Epi. Argos and Athens. He then returned to take part with the Argeians Attack in a war against Epidaurus. To acquire possession daurus by of this city would much facilitate the communication between Athens and Argos, since it was not only immediately opposite to the island of Ægina now occupied by the Athenians, but also opened to the latter an access by land, dispensing with the labour of circumnavigating Cape Skyllæum (the south-eastern point of the Argeian and Epidaurian peninsula) whenever they sent forces to Argos. Moreover the territory of Epidaurus bordered to this expedition of Alkibiadês in his usual loose and exaggerated language: but he has a right to call attention to it as something very memorable at the time. 1 Thucyd. v. 52. Movements of the Spartans and Argeians. the north on that of Corinth, so that the possession of it would be an additional guarantee for the neutrality of the Corinthians. Accordingly it was resolved to attack Epidaurus,—for which a pretext was easily found. As presiding and administering state of the temple of Apollo Pythäeus (situated within the walls of Argos), the Argeians enjoyed a sort of religious supremacy over Epidaurus and other neighbouring cities-seemingly the remnant of that extensive supremacy, political as well as religious, which in early times had been theirs'. The Epidaurians owed to this temple certain sacrifices and other ceremonial obligations-one of which arising out of some circumstance which we cannot understand, was now due and unperformed: at least so the Argeians alleged. Such default imposed upon them the duty of getting together a military force to attack the Epidaurians and enforce the obligation. Their invading march however was for a time suspended by the news that king Agis with the full force of Lacedæmon and her allies had advanced as far as Leuktra-one of the border towns of Laconia on the north-west, towards Mount Lykæum and the Arcadian Parrhasii. What this movement meant, was known only to Agis himself, who did not even explain the purpose to his own soldiers or officers, or allies. But the sacrifice constantly 1 Thucyd. v. 53, with Dr. Arnold's note. * Thucyd. v. 54. ᾔδει δὲ οὐδεὶς ὅποι στρατεύουσιν οὐδὲ αἱ πόλεις ἐξ ὧν ἐπέμφθησαν. This incident shows that Sparta employed the military force of her allies without any regard to their feelings-quite as decidedly as Athens; though there were some among them too powerful to be thus treated. offered before passing the border was found so unfavourable, that he abandoned his march for the present, and returned home. The month Karneius, a period of truce as well as religious festival among the Dorian states, being now at hand, he directed the allies to hold themselves prepared for an outmarch as soon as that month had expired. The sacred neius month Kar trick play On being informed that Agis had dismissed his troops, the Argeians prepared to execute their invasion of Epidaurus. The day on which they set ed by the out was already the 26th of the month preceding Argeians the Karneian month, so that there remained only calendar. three days before the commencement of that latter month with its holy truce, binding upon the religious feelings of the Dorian states generally, to which Argos, Sparta, and Epidaurus all belonged. But the Argeians made use of that very peculiarity of the season, which was accounted likely to keep them at home, to facilitate their scheme, by playing a trick with the calendar, and proclaiming one of those arbitrary interferences with the reckoning of time which the Greeks occasionally employed to correct the ever-recurring confusion of their lunar system. Having begun their march on the 26th of the month before Karneius, the Argeians called each succeeding day still the 26th, thus disallowing the lapse of time, and pretending that the Karneian month had not yet commenced. This proceeding was farther facilitated by the circumstance, that their allies of Athens, Elis, and Mantineia, not being Dorians, were under no obligation to observe the Karneian truce. Accordingly the army marched from Argos into the territory of Epidaurus, and spent seemingly a fortnight or three weeks in laying it waste; all this time being really, according to the reckoning of the other Dorian states, part of the Karneian truce, which the Argeians, adopting their own arbitrary computation of time, professed not to be violating. The Epidaurians, unable to meet them single-handed in the field, invoked the aid of their allies; who however had already been summoned by Sparta for the succeeding month, and did not choose, any more than the Spartans, to move during the Karneian month itself. Some allies however, perhaps the Corinthians, came as far as the Epidaurian border, but did not feel themselves strong enough to lend aid by entering the territory alone1. 1 Thucyd. v. 54. ̓Αργεῖοι δ ̓ ἀναχωρησάντων αὐτῶν (the Lacedæmonians), τοῦ πρὸ τοῦ Καρνείου μηνὸς ἐξελθόντες τετράδι φθίνοντος, καὶ ἄγοντες τὴν ἡμέραν ταύτην πάντα τὸν χρόνον, ἐσέβαλον ἐς τὴν Επιδαυρίαν καὶ ἐδήουν· Επιδαύριοι δὲ τοὺς ξυμμάχους ἐπεκαλοῦντο ὧν οἱ μὲν τὸν μῆνα προὐφασίσαντο, οἱ δὲ καὶ ἐς μεθορίαν τῆς Ἐπιδαυρίας ἐλθόντες ἡσύχαζον. In explaining this passage, I venture to depart from the views of all the commentators; with the less scruple, as it seems to me that even the best of them are here embarrassed and unsatisfactory. The meaning which I give to the words is the most strict and literal possible-"The Argeians, having set out on the 26th of the month before Karneius, and keeping that day during the whole time, invaded the Epidaurian territory, and went on ravaging it." By " during the whole time" is meant, during the whole time that this expedition lasted. That is, in my judgement-they kept the 26th day of the antecedent month for a whole fortnight or so-they called each successive day by the same name-they stopped the computed march of time-the 27th was never admitted to have arrived. Dr. Thirlwall translates it (Hist. Gr. vol. iii. ch. xxiv. p. 331)—“they began their march on a day which they had always been used to keep holy." But the words on this |