The Corinthians "invited deputies from the other states of the confederacy to meet them at Sparta, and there charged the Athenians with having broken the treaty, and trampled on the rights of the Peloponnesians. The Spartans held an assembly to receive the complaints of their allies, and to discuss the question of peace or war. Here the Corinthians were seconded by several other members of the confederacy, who had also wrongs to complain of against Athens, and urged the Spartans for redress. … It happened that at this time Athenian envoys, who had been sent on other business, were still in Sparta. {1581} They desired permission to attend and address the assembly. … When the strangers had all been heard, they were desired to withdraw, that the assembly might deliberate. The feeling against the Athenians was universal; most voices were for instant war. … The deputies of the allies were then informed of the resolution which the assembly had adopted, and that a general congress of the confederacy would shortly be summoned to deliberate on the same question, in order that war, if decided on, might be decreed by common consent. … The congress decided on the war; but the confederacy was totally unprepared for commencing hostilities, and though the necessary preparations were immediately begun and vigorously prosecuted, nearly a year elapsed before it was ready to bring an army into the field. In the meantime embassies were sent to Athens with various remonstrances and demands, for the double purpose of amusing the Athenians with the prospect of peace, and of multiplying pretexts for war. An attempt was made, not, perhaps, so foolish as it was insolent, to revive the popular dread of the curse which had been supposed to hang over the Alcmæonids. The Athenians were called upon, in the name of the gods, to banish all who remained among them of that blood-stained race. If they had complied with this demand, they must have parted with Pericles, who, by the mother's side, was connected with the Alcmæonids. This, indeed, was not expected; but it was hoped that the refusal might afford a pretext to his enemies at Athens for treating him as the author of the war. The Athenians retorted by requiring the Spartans to expiate the pollution with which they had profaned the sanctuary of Tænarus, by dragging from it some Helots who had taken refuge there, and that of Athene, by the death of Pausanias. … Still, war had been only threatened, not declared; and peaceful intercourse, though not wholly free from distrust, was still kept up between the subjects of the two confederacies. But early in the following spring, B. C. 431, in the fifteenth year of the Thirty Years' Truce, an event took place which closed all prospects of peace, precipitated the commencement of war, imbittered the animosity