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1

When Aristion was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Titus Quinctius and Aulus Cornelius Cossus. During this year, although the Peloponnesian War had just come to an end, again tumults and military movements occurred throughout Greece, for the following reasons. [2] Although the Athenians and Lacedaemonians had concluded a truce and cessation of hostilities in company with their allies, they had formed an alliance without consultation with the allied cities. By this act they fell under suspicion of having formed an alliance for their private ends, with the purpose of enslaving the rest of the Greeks. [3] As a consequence the most important of the cities maintained a mutual exchange of embassies and conversations regarding a union of policy and an alliance against the Athenians and Lacedaemonians. [4] The leading states in this undertaking were the four most powerful ones, Argos, Thebes, Corinth, and Elis.

There was good reason to suspect that Athens and Lacedaemon had common designs against the rest of Greece, since a clause had been added to the compact which the two had made, namely, that the Athenians and Lacedaemonians had the right, according as these states may deem it best, to add to or subtract from the agreements. Moreover, the Athenians by decree had lodged in ten men the power to take counsel regarding what would be of advantage to the city; and since much the same thing had also been done by the Lacedaemonians, the selfish ambitions of the two states were open for all to see. [5] Many cities answered to the call of their common freedom, and since the Athenians were disdained by reason of the defeat they had suffered at Delium and the Lacedaemonians had had their fame reduced because of the capture of their citizens on the island of Sphacteria,2 a large number of cities joined together and selected the city of the Argives to hold the position of leader. [6] For this city enjoyed a high position by reason of its achievements in the past, since until the return of the Heracleidae3 practically all the most important kings had come from the Argolis, and furthermore, since the city had enjoyed peace for a long time, it had received revenues of the greatest size and had a great store not only of money but also of men. [7] The Argives, believing that the entire leadership was to be conceded to them, picked out one thousand of their younger citizens who were at the same time the most vigorous in body and the most wealthy, and freeing them also from every other service to the state and supplying them with sustenance at public expense, they had them undergo continuous training and exercise. These young men, therefore, by reason of the expense incurred for them and their continuous training, quickly formed a body of athletes trained to deeds of war.

1 421 B.C.

2 See chap. 63.

3 See Book 4.57 ff.

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), EXE´RCITUS
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), ARGOS
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), LINDUS
    • Smith's Bio, Cincinna'tus
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