ABSTRACT
After a long series of conferences during the winter of 422/421 BC, the Spartans and Athenians agreed to end the Arkhidamian War by making a peace treaty based upon the principle that each side should restore to the other what it had gained during the war, with two exceptions: Plataiai in Boiotia and Nisaiai in Megara were to be kept by the Thebans and Athenians respectively. During the Arkhidamian War, the Athenians had captured and fortified Pylos on the Messenian coast, which had then become a refuge for deserters from Spartan-controlled territory. Although Xenophon states that the invasion of Attika at the end of the Dekeleian War was undertaken by the Lakedaimonians and 'the other Peloponnesians except the Argives', it is unlikely that the Eleians had followed the Mantineians in resuming their alliance with the Spartans. During the winter of 418/417 BC, however, Argives made peace with Spartans, withdrew from quadruple alliance and, for a while, became their allies instead.
