Mantineia Meanwhile the Athenians had convoked another Congress at congress of deputies at Mantineia, for the purpose for peace the discussions prove construction introduce a new fact which has no visible bearing on the abortive. main affirmation of the sentence. The meaning which I give may perhaps be called in question on the ground that such tampering with the calendar is too absurd and childish to have been really committed. Yet it is not more absurd than the two votes said to have been passed by the Athenian assembly (in 290 B.C.), who being in the month of Munychion, first passed a vote that that month should be the month Anthestêrion-next that it should be the month Boêdromion; in order that Demetrius Poliorkêtês might be initiated both in the lesser and greater mysteries of Dêmêtêr, both nearly at the same time. Demetrius, being about to quit Athens in the month Munychion, went through both ceremonies with little or no delay (Plutarch, Demetrius, c. 26). Compare also the speech ascribed to Alexander at the Granikus, directing a second month Artemisius to be substituted for the month Daesius (Plutarch, Alex. c. 16). Besides if we look to the conduct of the Argeians themselves at a subsequent period (B.c. 389. Xenophon, Hellen. iv. 7, 2, 5; v. 1, 29), we shall see them playing an analogous trick with the calendar in order to get the benefit of the sacred truce. When the Lacedæmonians invaded Argos, the Argeians despatched heralds with wreaths and the appropriate insignia, to warn them off on the ground of it being the period of the holy truce-though it really was not so—οὐχ ὅποτε κάθηκοι ὁ χρόνος, ἀλλ ̓ ὅποτε ἐμβάλλειν μέλλοιεν Λακεδαιμόνιοι, τότε ὑπέφερον τοὺς μῆνας—Οἱ δὲ ̓Αργεῖοι, ἐπεὶ ἔγνωσαν οὐ δυνησόμενοι κωλύειν, ἔπεμψαν, ὥσπερ εἰώθεσαν, ἐστεφανωμένους δύο κήρυκας, ὑποþépovтas σñovdás. On more than one occasion, this stratagem was successful: the Lacedæmonians did not dare to act in defiance of the summons of the heralds, who affirmed that it was the time of the truce, though in reality it was not so. At last the Spartan king Agesipolis actually went both to Olympia and Delphi, to put the express question to those oracles, whether he was bound to accept the truce at any moment, right or wrong, when it might suit the convenience of the Argeians to bring it forward as a sham plea (vπopéρew). The oracles both told him that he was under no obligation to submit to such a pretence: accordingly, he sent back the heralds, refusing to attend to their summons; and invaded the Argeian territory. Now here is a case exactly in point, with this difference-that the Argeians, when they are invaders of Epidaurus, falsify the calendar in order to blot out the holy truce where it really ought to have come: whereas when they are the party invaded, they commit similar falsification in order to introduce the truce where it does not legitimately be of discussing propositions of peace: perhaps this may have been a point carried by Nikias at Athens, long. I conceive, therefore, that such an analogous incident justifies the interpretation which I have given of the passage now before us in Thucydidês. But even if I were unable to produce a case so exactly parallel, I should still defend the interpretation. Looking to the state of the ancient Grecian calendars, the proceeding imputed to the Argeians ought not to be looked on as too preposterous and absurd for adoption-with the same eyes as we should regard it now. With the exception of Athens, we do not know completely the calendar of a single other Grecian city: but we know that the months of all were lunar months, and that the practice followed in regard to intercalation, for the prevention of inconvenient divergence between lunar and solar time, was different in each different city. Accordingly the lunar month of one city did not (except by accident) either begin or end at the same time as the lunar month of another. M. Boeckh observes (ad Corp. Inscr. T. i. p. 734)—“ Variorum populorum menses, qui sibi secundum legitimos annorum cardines respondent, non quovis conveniunt anno, nisi cyclus intercalationum utrique populi idem sit: sed ubi differunt cycli, altero populo prius intercalante mensem dum non intercalat alter, eorum qui non intercalarunt mensis certus cedit jam in eum mensem alterorum qui præcedit illum cui vulgo respondet certus iste mensis: quod tamen negligere solent chronologi." Compare also the valuable Dissertation of K. F. Hermann, Ueber die Griechische Monatskunde, Götting. 1844, p. 21-27—where all that is known about the Grecian names and arrangement of months is well brought together. The names of the Argeian months we hardly know at all (see K. F. Hermann, p. 84-124): indeed the only single name resting on positive proof, is that of a month Hermæus. How far the months of Argos agreed with those of Epidaurus or Sparta, we do not know, nor have we any right to presume that they did agree. Nor is it by any means clear that every city in Greece had what may properly be called a system of intercalation, so correct as to keep the calendar right without frequent arbitrary interferences. Even at Athens, it is not yet satisfactorily proved that the Metonic calendar was ever actually received into civil use. Cicero, in describing the practice of the Sicilian Greeks about reckoning of time, eharacterises their interferences for the purpose of correcting the calendar as occasional rather than systematic. Verres took occasion from these interferences to make a still more violent change, by deolaring the ides of January to be the calends of March (Cicero, Verr. ii. 52, 129). Now where a people are accustomed to get wrong in their calendar, and to see occasional interferences introduced by authority to set them in spite of Alkibiadês. What other deputies attended, we are not told: but Euphamidas, coming as envoy from Corinth, animadverted, even at the opening of the debates, upon the inconsistency of assembling a peace congress while war was actually raging in the Epidaurian territory. So much were the Athenian deputies struck with this observation, that they departed, persuaded the Argeians to retire from Epidaurus, and then came back to resume negotiations. Still however the pretensions of both parties were found irreconcileable, and the congress right, the step which I here suppose the Argeians to have taken about the invasion of Epidaurus will not appear absurd and preposterous. The Argeians would pretend that the real time for celebrating the festival of Karneia had not yet arrived. On that point, they were not bound to follow the views of other Dorian states-since there does not seem to have been any recognised authority for proclaiming the commencement of the Karneian truce, as the Eleians proclaimed the Olympic, and the Corinthians the Isthiniac truce. In saying therefore that the 26th of the month preceding Karneius should be repeated, and that the 27th should not be recognised as arriving for a fortnight or three weeks, the Argeian government would only be employing an expedient the like of which had been before resorted to-though, in the case before us, it was employed for a fraudulent purpose. The Spartan month Hekatombeus appears to have corresponded with the Attic month Hekatombæon—the Spartan month following it, Karneius, with the Attic month Metageitnion (Hermann, p. 112)—our months July and August; such correspondence being by no means exact or constant. Both Dr. Arnold and Göller speak of Hekatombeus as if it were the Argeian month preceding Karneius; but we only know it as a Spartan month. Its name does not appear among the months of the Dorian cities in Sicily, among whom nevertheless Karneius seems universal. See Franz, Comm. ad Corp. Inscript. Græc. No. 5475, 5491, 5640. Part xxxii. p. 640. The tricks played with the calendar at Rome, by political authorities for party purposes, are well known to every one. And even in some states of Greece, the course of the calendar was so uncertain as to serve as a proverbial expression for inextricable confusion. See HesychiusΕν Κέῳ τις ἡμέρα; Ἐπὶ τῶν οὐκ εὐγνώστων· οὐδεὶς γὰρ οἶδεν ἐν Κέφ τις ἡ ἡμέρα, ὅτι οὐκ ἐστᾶσιν αἱ ἡμέραι, ἀλλ' ὡς ἕκαστοι θέλουσιν ἄγουσι. See also Aristoph. Nubes, 605. broke up; upon which the Argeians again returned to renew their devastations in Epidaurus, while the Lacedæmonians, immediately on the expiration of the Karneian month, marched out again, as far as their border town of Karya-but were again arrested and forced to return by unfavourable border-sacrifices. Intimation of their out-march, however, was transmitted to Athens; upon which Alkibiadês, at the head of 1000 Athenian hoplites, was sent to join the Argeians. But before he arrived, the Lacedæmonian army had been already disbanded: so that his services were no longer required, and the Argeians carried their ravages over one-third of the territory of Epidaurus before they at length evacuated it1. The Epidaurians were reinforced about the end of September by a detachment of 300 Lacedæmonian hoplites under Agesippidas, sent by sea without the knowledge of the Athenians. Of this the Argeians preferred loud complaints at Athens. They had good reason to condemn the negligence of the Athenians as allies, for not having kept 1 Thucyd. v. 55. καὶ ̓Αθηναίων αὐτοῖς χίλιοι ἐβοήθησαν ὁπλῖται καὶ ̓Αλκιβιάδης στρατηγὸς, πυθόμενοι τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους ἐξεστρατεῦσθαι· καὶ ὡς οὐδὲν ἔτι αὐτῶν ἔδει, ἀπῆλθον. This is the reading which Portus, Bloomfield, Didot, and Göller, either adopt or recommend; leaving out the particle δὲ which stands in the common text after πυθόμενοι. If we do not adopt this reading, we must construe éέeoтparevσðaι (as Dr. Arnold and Poppo construe it) in the sense of "had already completed their expedition and returned home." But no authority is produced for putting such a meaning upon the verb ékoтpareúw: and the view of Dr. Arnold, who conceives that this meaning exclusively belongs to the preterite or pluperfect tense, is powerfully contradicted by the use of the word éέeσrpatevμévwv (ii. 7), the same verb and the same tense— yet in a meaning contrary to that which he assigns. It appears to me the less objectionable proceeding of the two, to dispense with the particle dé. the alliance better naval watch at their neighbouring station of Egina, and for having allowed this enemy to enter the harbour of Epidaurus. But they took another ground of complaint somewhat remarkable. In the alliance between Athens, Argos, Elis, and Mantineia, it had been stipulated that neither of the four should suffer the passage of troops through its territory without the joint consent of all. Now the sea was accounted a part of the territory of Athens so that the Athenians had violated this Athenian lordship of article of the treaty by permitting the Lacedæmo- the seanians to send troops by sea to Epidaurus. And the between Argeians now required Athens, in compensation for this wrong, to carry back the Messenians and Helots from Kephallenia to Pylus, and allow them to ravage Laconia. The Athenians, under the persuasion of Alkibiadês, complied with their requisition; inscribing, at the foot of the pillar on which their alliance with Sparta stood recorded, that the Lacedæmonians had not observed their oaths. Nevertheless they still abstained from formally throwing up their treaty with Lacedæmon, or breaking it in any other way'. The relations between Athens and Sparta thus remained, in name-peace and alliance -so far as concerns direct operations against each other's territory; in reality-hostile action as well as hostile manoeuvring, against each other, as allies respectively of third parties. The Argeians, after having prolonged their incursions on the Epidaurian territory throughout all the autumn, made in the winter an unavailing J Thucyd. v. 56. Athens and tinues in Sparta con name, but is indirectly both. violated by |