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exclusion of Argos from the Thirty Years' Peace between Athens and Sparta in 446/445 suggests that
the symmachia of ca. 462 had expired or been repudiated prior to 446/445, perhaps in connection
with the separate peace of 451/450.[3]
During the Archidamian War (431-421), Argos remained steadfastly neutral.[4] In 421, however,
the situation changed. When their peace treaty with Sparta expired, the Argives abandoned their
passive policy and attempted to wrest political leadership of the
[2] Thuc. 5. 14.4, 22.2, 28.2, 40.3; Bengtson, SVA no. 144.
[3]
[4] . See Thuc. 5. 28.2 and Ar. Peace 475-77, the latter quoted in note 22 in chapter 1. Unfortunately,
Thucydides provides no details after his initial notice (2. 9.2); however, the steadfastness of the policy
can be seen in Aristophanes joke (in February 424) about Cleon's efforts to win Argive support, since if
Cleon is supposedly working for it, the whole idea must be unthinkable for a rational politician (Knights
865-66); see Meiggs, Athenian Empire , 319; Tomlinson, Argos and the Argolid , 116-17. On the
limited protection of the status, see Thucydides' remark about the execution of the Argive citizen Pollis
(Thuc. 2. 67.1; discussed in 6.6 below).
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Peloponnesus from Sparta.[5] By 416 the dream of ascendancy had been shattered, and a
hard-pressed democratic government entered into a formal alliance with Athens.[6] Subsequently, the
Argives joined in the Sicilian expedition in 415 (6. 29.3, 43; 7. 57.5) and sent a contingent to Ionia in
412 (8. 25, 27.6). But strangely, there is no further record of Argive participation, either in Thucydides
or Xenophon, though the latter mentions that two Argive ambassadors accompanied an Athenian
embassy to Persia in 408 (Hell . 1. 3.13). Later Xenophon adds without explanation that Argos was the
only Peloponnesian city that did not join in the final siege of Athens in 405 (Hell . 2. 2.7). Whether the
withdrawal from active participation was the result of a formal policy change or represents a simple
lack of nerve is uncertain. Whatever the details, it seems to have worked, for no punitive measures by
the Peloponnesian alliance are recorded.
B. Achaea
Very little is known about the Achaeans' foreign policy prior to 431.[7] They seem to have done
nothing during Xerxes' invasion (Hdt. 8. 73.3; see 5.2 above), but in the First Peloponnesian War (ca.
460-446/445) they aligned themselves with Athens and joined Pericles' expedition against Oeniadae in
Acarnania (Thuc. 1. 111.3; Plut. Per . 10.3). In the terms of the Thirty Years' Peace (446/445) Athens
agreed to give up control;[8] and nothing further is recorded about the Achaeans until Thucydides
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comments on their neutrality in 431.
During the Archidamian War there is only one incident involving the Achaeans. In 429, Brasidas
allegedly encouraged his troops to consider the Achaean coast "friendly" (oikeia ) because of a
Peloponnesian hoplite force present there (2. 87.6); and indeed, when
[5] Thuc. 5. 27-81; Bengtson, SVA nos. 190, 193, 196; Tomlinson, Argos and the Argolid , 118-25.
[6] Bengtson, SVA no. 196. See Andrews, HCT , vol. 4, 151.
[7] See J.K. Anderson, "A Topographical and Historical Study of Achaea," BSA 49 (1954): 80-85; J. A.
O. Larsen, Greek Federal States: Their Institutions and History (Oxford, 1968), 126-28; on the
identification of the Achaean cities, see Hdt. 1. 145.
[8]
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disaster struck, the remnants of his expedition retreated initially to Achaean Panormus (92.1) and
then, after splitting up, to Leucas and Corinth (92.6). But despite Brasidas' rhetoric, it seems certain
that the Spartans did not consider the Achaeans themselves to be genuinely sympathetic, for in 426
they specifically excluded Achaeans from participation in the foundation of Heraclea Trachinia (Thuc. 3.
92.5).
The Achaean stance remained unchanged until 419, when Alcibiades persuaded the inhabitants of
Patrae to extend their walls to the sea in conjunction with the building of an Athenian fort at Achaean
Rhium (Thuc. 5. 52.2; cf. Isoc. 20 [Loch .]. 15). Protests from Corinth and Sicyon halted the project,
which may have been connected with Athenian efforts to gain the support of these cities. A glimpse of
Athens' intentions can be seen in the Athenian demand of 425 that Achaea be returned as a condition
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