100 HISTORY OF GREECK. refused to move during the period of their festival : noi -vas it until messenger after messenger had arrived to set forth the pressing necessity of their friends, that they reluctantly put aside their festival to march towards Argos. They were too late : the precious moment had already passed by. They were met at Tegea by an intimation that their friends were over- thrown, and Argos in possession of the victorious people. Nevertheless, various exiles who had escaped still promised them success, urgently entreating them to proceed, but the Lacedaemo- nians refused to comply, returned to Sparta, and resumed their intermitted festival. 1 Thus was the oligarchy of Argos overthrown, after a continu- ance of about four months, 2 from February to June, 417 B.C., and the chosen Thousand-regiment either dissolved or destroyed. The movement excited great sympathy in several Peloponnesian cities, 3 who were becoming jealous of the exorbitant preponder- ance of Sparta. Nevertheless, the Argeian Demos, though victorious within the city, felt so much distrust of being able to maintain themselves, that they sent envoys to Sparta to plead their cause and to entreat favorable treatment : a proceeding which proves the insurrection to have been spontaneous, not fomented by Athens. But the envoys of the expelled oligarchs were there to confront them, and the Lacedaemonians, after a lengthened discussion, adjudging the Demos to have been guilty of wrong, proclaimed the resolution of sending forces to put them down. Still, the habitual tardiness of Lacedaemonian habits prevented any immediate or separate movement. Their allies were to be summoned, none being very zealous in the cause, and least of all at this moment, when the period of harvest was at hand ; so that about three months intervened before any actual force was brought together. 1 Thucyd. v, 82 ; Diodor. xii, 80.
- Diodorus (xii, 80) says that it lasted eight months : but this, if correct
at all, must be taken as beginning from the alliance between Sparta and Argos, and not from the first establishment of the oligarchy. The narra- tive of Thucydides does not allow more than four months for the duration of the latter. 3 Thucyd. v, 32. ^vrydeaav 6s: rbv TEIICUOV nal TUV iv TlcAOTrr>vvi]<r<f
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