44 HISTORY OF GRKECE already concluded a special alliance with the Boeotians withcui consulting Athens, the unmeasured expression of displeasure in the Athenian ekklesia showed Alkibiades that the time was now come for bringing on a substantive decision. While he lent IIH own voice to strengthen this discontent against Sparta, he at the same time despatched a private intimation to his correspondents at Argos, exhorting them, under assurances of success and prom- ise of his own strenuous aid, to send without delay an embassy to Athens in conjunction with the Mantineians and Eleians, request- ing to be admitted as Athenian allies. The Argeians received this intimation at the very moment when their citizens Eustrophus and JEson were negotiating at Sparta for the renewal of the peace, having been sent thither under great uneasiness lest Argos should be left without allies to contend single-handed against the Lace- daemonians. But no sooner was the unexpected chance held out to them of alliance with Athens, a former friend, a democracy like their own, an imperial state at sea, but not interfering with their own primacy in Peloponnesus, than they became careless of Eustrophus and JEson, and despatched forthwith to Athens the embassy advised. It was a joint embassy, Argeian, Eleian, and Mantineian : l the alliance between these three cities had already been rendered more intimate by a second treaty concluded since that treaty to which Corinth was a party ; but Corinth had refused all concern in the second. 2 But the Spartans had been already alarmed by the harsh repulse of their envoy Andromedes, and probably warned by reports from Nikias and their other Athenian friends of the crisis impending respecting alliance between Athens and Argos. Accordingly they sent off without a moment's delay three citizens extremely popular at Athens, 3 Philocharidas, Leon, and Endius ; with full powers to settle all matters of difference. The envoys were instructed to deprecate all alliance of Athens with Argos, to explain that the alliance of Sparta with Bceotia had been con- cluded without any purpose or possibility of evil to Athens, and at the same time to renew the demand that Pylos should be re 1 Thucyd. v, 43. 2 Thucyd. r, 43. 3 Thucyd. v, 44 'A^i'/covro <5e KO.I ane6aL noviuv TrpHiBeif Karr - '^o
etc.
