CONGRESS AT MAX7IXKIA. 67 Meanwhile the Athenians had convoked another congress of deputies at Mantiueia, for the purpose of discussing propositions Besides, if we look to the conduct of the Argeiaus themselves at a subse- quent period (B.C. 389, Xenophon, Hellen. iv, 7, 2, 5; v, 1, 29), we shall see. them playing an analogous trick with the calendar in order to get the benefit of the sacred truce. When the Lacedaemonians invaded Argos, the Argcians despatched heralds with wreaths and the appropriate insignia, to warn them off on the ground of its being the period of the holy truce, though it really was not so, ovx oirore Kudrjuoi 6 p 6 1> o , a/.X' o 7i o r e enftuhheiv fish'hoiev A a K e da i(iov t o i , rare v TT e - <j> epov rotif firjva^ Ol 6e Apyeloi ETTEI eyvuaav ov dwr/aofisvoL KU^VELV, K-rrepjjav, u a TT E p e luti s a av, EaT<j>a,vuij.Evov<; 6vo KijpVKaf, v TT o e - povraf CTTTOV d uf . On more than one occasion, this stratagem was successful : the Lacedsemoniaas did not dare to act in defiance of the sum- mons of the heralds, who afZrmed that it was the time of the truce, though in reality it was not so. At last, the Spartan king Agesipolis actually went both to Olympia and Delphi, to put the express question to those oracles, whether he was bound to accept the truce at any moment, right or wrong, when it might suit the convenience of the Argeians to bring it forward as a sham plea (virotyspeiv). The oracles both told him that he was under no obligation to submit to such a pretence; accordingly, he sent back the heralds, refusing to attend to their summons, and invaded the Argeian territory. Now here is a case exactly in point, with this difference ; that the Arge- ians, when they are invaders of Epidaurus, falsify the calendar in order to blot out the holy truce where it really ought to have come : whereas when they are the party invaded, they commit similar falsification in order to introduce the truce where it does not legitimately belong. I conceive, there- "ore, that such an analogous incident completely justifies the interpretation vhich I have given of the passage now before us in Thucydides. But even if I were unable to produce a case so exactly parallel, I should still defend the interpretation. Looking to the state of the ancient Grecian calendars, the proceeding imputed to the Argeians ought not to be looked on as too preposterous and absurd for adoption, with the same eyes as we should regard it now. Vrith the exception of Athens, we do not know completely rhe calendar of a single other Grecian city: but we know that the months of all were lunar months, and that the practice followed in regard to intercalation, foi the prevention of inconvenient divergence between lunar and solar time, was different in each different city. Accordingly, the lunar month of one city did not, except by accident, either begin or end at the same time na the lunar month of another. M. Boeckh observes (ad Corp. Inscr t. ; p. 734) : ' : Variorum populorum menses, qui sibi secundum legitimos annorua
civrdines respondent, non quovis conveniunt anno, nisi cyclus i
