This text is part of:
47.
"The Athenians and Argives and Mantineans and Eleians, for themselves and for the confederates commanded by every of them, have made an accord for one hundred years, without fraud or damage, both by sea and land.
[2]
It shall not be lawful for the Argives nor Eleians nor Mantineans nor their confederates to bear arms against the Athenians or the confederates under the command of the Athenians or their confederates by any fraud or machination whatsoever.
"And the Athenians, Argives, and Mantineans have made league with each other for one hundred years on these terms:
[3]
"If any enemy shall invade the territory of the Athenians, then the Argives, Eleians, and Mantineans shall go unto Athens to assist them, according as the Athenians shall send them word to do, in the best manner they possibly can.
But if the enemy, after he have spoiled the territory, shall be gone back, then their city shall be held as an enemy to the Argives, Eleians, Mantineans, and Athenians, and war shall be made against it by all those cities;
and it shall not be lawful for any of those cities to give over the war without the consent of all the rest.
"And if an enemy shall invade the territory, either of the Argives or of the Eleians or of the Mantineans, then the Athenians shall come unto Argos, Elis, and Mantineia to assist them, in such sort as those cities shall send them word to do, in the best manner they possibly can.
[4]
But if the enemy, after he hath wasted their territory, shall be gone back, then their city shall be held as an enemy both to the Athenians and also to the Argives, Eleians, and Mantineans, and war shall be made against it by all those cities;
and it shall not be lawful for any of them to give over the war against that city without the consent of all the rest.
[5]
"There shall no armed men be suffered to pass through the dominions either of themselves or of any the confederates under their several commands to make war in any place whatsoever, unless by the suffrage of all the cities, Athens, Argos, Elis, and Mantineia, their passage be allowed.
"To such as come to assist any of the other cities, that city which sendeth them shall give maintenance for thirty days after they shall arrive in the city that sent for them;
[6]
and the like at their going away;
but if they will use the army for a longer time, then the city that sent for them shall find them maintenance, at the rate of three oboles of Aegina a day for a man of arms, and of a drachma of Aegina for a horseman.
"The city which sendeth for the aids shall have the leading and command of them whilst the war is in their own territory;
[7]
but if it shall seem good unto these cities to make a war in common, then all the cities shall equally participate of the command.
"The Athenians shall swear unto the articles both for themselves and for their confederates;
and the Argives, Eleians, and Mantineans, and the confederates of these shall every one swear unto them city by city.
[8]
And their oath shall be the greatest that by custom of the several cities is used, and with most perfect hosts, and in these words: 'I will stand to this league, according to the articles thereof, justly, innocently, and sincerely, and not transgress the same by any art or machination whatsoever.'
"This oath shall be taken at Athens by the senate and the officers of the commons, and administered by the Prytanes.
[9]
At Argos it shall be taken by the senate and the council of eighty and by the Artynae, and administered by the council of eighty.
At Mantineia it shall be taken by the procurators of the people and by the senate and by the rest of the magistrates, and administered by the theori and by the tribunes of the soldiers.
At Elis it shall be taken by the procurators of the people and by the officers of the treasury and by the council of six hundred, and administered by the procurators of the people and by the keepers of the law.
[10]
"This oath shall be renewed by the Athenians, who shall go to Elis and to Mantineia and to Argos thirty days before the Olympian games;
and by the Argives, Eleians, and Mantineans, who shall come to Athens ten days before the Panathenaean holidays.
[11]
"The articles of this league and peace and the oath shall be inscribed in a pillar of stone by the Athenians in the citadel;
by the Argives in their market place within the precincts of the temple of Apollo;
and by the Mantineans in their market place within the precinct of the temple of Jupiter.
And at the Olympian games now at hand, there shall be jointly erected by them all a brazen pillar in Olympia [with the same inscription].
[12]
‘If it shall seem good to any of these cities to add anything to these articles, whatsoever shall be determined by them all in common council, the same shall stand good.’
The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. Thucydides. Thomas Hobbes. translator. London. Bohn. 1843.
This text was converted to electronic form by optical character recognition and has been proofread to a high level of accuracy.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.