This very year, moreover, it was commonly said, (5) saw the expiration, as far as the Mantineans were concerned, of the thirty years' truce, consequent upon the battle of Mantinea. On their refusal, therefore, to raze their fortification walls the ban was called out against them. Agesilaus begged the state to absolve him from the conduct of this war on the plea that the city of Mantinea had done frequent service to his father (6) in his Messenian wars. Accordingly Agesipolis led the expedition--in spite of the cordial relations of his father Pausanias (7) with the leaders of the popular party in Mantinea. (5) As to this point, see Curtius, "H. G." V. v. (iv. 305 note, Eng. trans.) There appears to be some confusion. According to Thuc. v. 81, "When the Argives deserted the alliance (with Mantinea, Athens, and Elis, making a new treaty of alliance with Lacedaemon for fifty years) the Mantineans held out for a time, but without the Argives they were helpless, and so they came to terms with the Lacedaemonians, and gave up their claims to supremacy over the cities in Arcadia, which had been subject to them.... These changes were effected at the close of winter (418 B.C.) towards the approach of spring (417 B.C.), and so ended the fourteenth year of the war." Jowett. According to Diod. xv. 5, the Lacedaemonians attacked Mantinea within two years after the Peace of Antalcidas, apparently in 386 B.C. According to Thuc. v. 82, and "C. I. A. 50, in B.C. 417 Argos had reverted to her alliance with Athens, and an attempt to connect the city with the sea by long walls was made, certain other states in Peloponnese being privy to the project" (Thuc. v. 83)--an attempt frustrated by Lacedaemon early in B.C. 416. Is it possible that a treaty of alliance between Mantinea and Lacedaemon for thirty years was formally signed in B.C. 416? (6) I.e. Archidamus. (7) See above, "Hell." III. v. 25. B.C. 385. The first move of the invader was to subject the enemy's territory to devastation; but failing by such means to induce them to raze their walls, he proceeded to draw lines of circumvallation round the city, keeping half his troops under arms to screen the entrenching parties whilst the other half pushed on the work with the spade. As soon as the trench was completed, he experienced no further difficulty in building a wall round the city. Aware, however, of the existence of a huge supply of corn inside the town, the result of the bountiful harvest of the preceding year, and averse to the notion of wearing out the city of Lacedaemon and her allies by tedious campaigning, he hit upon the expedient of damming up the river which flowed through the town.