(5.56) In the following winter the Lacedaemonians, unknown to the Athenians, sent by sea to Epidaurus a garrison of three hundred under the command of Agesippidas. The Argives came to the Athenians and complained that, notwithstanding the clause in the treaty which forbade the passage of enemies through the territory of any of the contracting parties,57 they had allowed the Lacedaemonians to pass by sea along the Argive coast. If they did not retaliate by replacing the Messenians and Helots in Pylos, and letting them ravage Laconia, they, the Argives, would consider themselves wronged. The Athenians, by the advice of Alcibiades, inscribed at the foot of the column on which the treaty was recorded58 words to the effect that the Lacedaemonians had not abided by their oaths, and thereupon conveyed the Helots recently settled at Cranii59 to Pylos that they might plunder the country, but they took no further steps. During the winter the war between the Argives and Epidaurians continued; there was no regular engagement, but there were ambuscades and incursions in which losses were inflicted, now on one side, now on the other. At the end of winter, when the spring was approaching, the Argives came with scaling-ladders against Epidaurus, expecting to find that the place was stripped of its defenders by the war, and could be taken by storm. But the attempt failed, and they returned. So the winter came to an end, and with it the thirteenth year of the war.
JOWETT'S FOOTNOTES
57.(From 5.56) Cp. v. 47. § 3.