Latin
Lines 1.30-1.32
Greek and Roman Historians, The Peloponnesian War 1.30-32
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The Peace of Nicias was seen by Thucydides as an uneasy intermission between two phases of a single war. Corinth and Boeotia rejected the peace from the outset, and an energetic young Athenian politician, Alcibiades, tried to return to what may have been Themistocles' policy of stirring up trouble for Sparta inside the Peloponnese. Alcibiades' plans, like those of Themistocles, centred on Argos, once again a factor in Greek international politics after 421 and ambitious to revive mythical Dorian glories. An alliance of Athens, Argos, Elis, and Mantinea fought Sparta in 418 in the territory of Mantinea. Sparta, resolute in war as it was irresolute in politics, scored a crushing victory over its enemies. The shame of the Sphacteria surrender was wiped out in one day, and the Greek world was reminded of Spartan hoplite supremacy. If Athens, whose finances were now strong again, wanted outlets for its aggression, it would have to find them elsewhere than in the Peloponnese. It sought it first in Anatolia, second on Melos, and third in Sicily.
Athenian entanglements in Persia
At some point after 425, when there was a routine renewal of the Peace of Callias, Athens began an entanglement in Anatolia with the Persian satrap Pissuthnes and subsequently with his natural son Amorges; it sent mercenary help to Pissuthnes and perhaps Amorges. If this involvement began while the Archidamian War was still in progress, it was inexplicable provocation to Persia except on the assumption that Athens was too short of cash to pay these troops itself (a 1,000-talent reserve had been set aside at the beginning of the war, but there was resistance to touching this). If the entanglement began in the period of the Peace of Nicias, it was still dangerous adventurism because nobody could say how long the peace with Sparta would last.