Note 29 — Chapter LV · FROM THE PEACE OF NIKIAS TO THE OLYMPIC FESTIVAL OF OLYMPIAD NINETY.

Thucyd. v, 31. τὴν ξυνθήκην προφέροντες ἐν ᾗ εἴρητο, ἃ ἔχοντες ἐς τὸν Ἀττικὸν πόλεμον καθίσταντό τινες, ταῦτα ἔχοντας καὶ ἐξελθεῖν, ὡς οὐκ ἴσον ἔχοντες ἀφίστανται, etc.

Of the agreement here alluded to among the members of the Peloponnesian confederacy, we hear only in this one passage. It was extremely important to such of the confederates as were imperial cities; that is, which had subordinates or subject-allies.

Poppo and Bloomfield wonder that the Corinthians did not appeal to this agreement in order to procure the restitution of Sollium and Anaktorium. But they misconceive the scope of the agreement, which did not relate to captures made during the war by the common enemy. It would be useless for the confederacy to enter into a formal agreement that none of the members should lose anything through capture made by the enemy. This would be a question of superiority of force, for no agreement could bind the enemy. But the confederacy might very well make a covenant among themselves, as to the relations between their own imperial immediate members, and the mediate or subordinate dependencies of each. Each imperial state consented to forego the tribute or services of its dependency, so long as the latter was called upon to lend its aid in the general effort of the confederacy against the common enemy. But the confederacy at the same time gave its guarantee, that the imperial state should reënter upon these suspended rights, so soon as the war should be at an end. This guarantee was clearly violated by Sparta in the case of Elis and Lepreum. On the contrary, in the case of Mantineia, mentioned a few pages back, p. 19, the Mantineians had violated the maxim of the confederacy, and Sparta was justified in interfering at the request of their subjects to maintain the autonomy of the latter.