[46]
on the contrary, having learned from the actual course of events that while according to law states and territories are deemed to belong to those who have duly and lawfully acquired them, in fact, however, they fall into the hands of those who are most practised in the art of warfare and are able to conquer their enemies in battle—thinking upon these things, they neglected agriculture and the arts and everything else and did not cease laying siege to the cities in the Peloponnesus one by one and doing violence to them until they overthrew them all with the exception of Argos.1
1 For the Spartan Conquest of the Peloponnese see Grote, History of Greece 2, pp. 418 ff.