on either side. In the eleventh year of the struggle (421 B.C.)
a treaty for a term of fifty years was concluded--called the
Peace of Nicias, in honor of the Athenian general of that name
--by which the towns captured during the war were to be restored,
and both Athens and Sparta placed in much the same state as when
hostilities commenced. But this proved to be a hollow truce;
for the war was a virtual triumph for Athens--and interest,
inclination, and the ambitious views of her party leaders were
not long in finding plausible pretexts for renewing the struggle.
Again, the Boeotian, Megarian, and Corinthian allies of Sparta
refused to carry out the terms of the treaty by making the required
surrenders, and Sparta had no power to compel them, while Athens
would accept no less than she had bargained for.

The Athenian general Nicias, through whose influence the Fifty
Years' Truce had been concluded, endeavored to carry out its
terms; but through the artifices of Alcibi'ades, a nephew of
Pericles, a wealthy Athenian, and an artful demagogue, the treaty
was soon dishonored on the part of Athens. Alcibi'ades also managed
to involve the Spartans in a war with their recent allies, the
Ar'gives, during which was fought the battle of Mantine'a, 418
B.C., in which the Spartans were victorious; and he induced the
Athenians to send an armament against the Dorian island of Me'los,
which had provoked the enmity of Athens by its attachment to
Sparta, and which was compelled, after a vigorous siege, to
surrender at discretion. Meanwhile the feeble resistance of
Sparta, and her apparent timidity, encouraged Athens to resume
a project of aggrandizement which she had once before undertaken,
but had been obliged to relinquish. This was no less than the
virtual conquest of Sicily, whose important cities, under the