56.
The next winter the Lacedaemonians, unknown to the Athenians, put three hundred garrison soldiers under the command of Agesippidas into Epidaurus by sea.
[2]
For which cause the Argives came and expostulated with the Athenians that whereas it was written in the articles of the league that no enemy should be suffered to pass through either of their dominions, yet had they suffered the Lacedaemonians to pass by sea;
and said they had wrong, unless the Athenians would again put the Messenians and Helotes into Pylus against the Lacedaemonians.
[3]
Hereupon the Athenians, at the persuasion of Alcibiades, wrote upon the Laconian pillar, [under the inscription of the peace], that the Lacedaemonians had violated their oath;
and they drew the Helotes out of Cranii and put them again into Pylus to infest the territory with driving off booties;
[4]
but did no more.
All this winter, though there was war between the Argives and Epidaurians, yet was there no set battle, but only ambushes and skirmishes, wherein were slain on both sides such as it chanced.
[5]
But in the end of winter, and the spring now at hand, the Argives came to Epidaurus with ladders, as destitute of men by reason of the war, thinking to have won it by assault, but returned again with their labour lost.
And so ended this winter, and the thirteenth year of this war.
The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. Thucydides. Thomas Hobbes. translator. London. Bohn. 1843.
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