Meanwhile the political relations throughout the powerful Grecian states remained all provisional and undetermined. The alliance still subsisted between Sparta and Athens, yet with continual complaints on the part of the latter that the prior treaty remained unfulfilled. The members of the Spartan confederacy were discontented; some had seceded, and others seemed likely to do the same; while Argos, ambitious to supplant Sparta, was trying to put herself at the head of a new confederacy, though as yet with very partial success. Hitherto, however, the authorities of Sparta—king Pleistoanax as well as the ephors of the year—had been sincerely desirous to maintain the Athenian alliance, so far as it could be done without sacrifice, and without the real employment of force against recusants, of which they had merely talked in order to amuse the Athenians. Moreover, the prodigious advantage which they had gained by recovering the prisoners, doubtless making them very popular at home, would attach them the more firmly to their own measure. But at the close of the summer—seemingly about the end of September or beginning of October, B.C. 421—the year of these ephors expired, and new ephors were nominated for the ensuing year. Under the existing state of things this was an important revolution: for out of the five new ephors, two—Kleobûlus and Xenarês—were decidedly hostile to peace with Athens, and the remaining three apparently indifferent.[36] And we may here remark, that this fluctuation and instability of public policy, which is often denounced as if it were the peculiar attribute of a democracy, occurs quite as much under the constitutional monarchy of Sparta, the least popular government in Greece, both in principle and detail. [36] Thucyd. v, 36. The new ephors convened a special congress at Sparta for the settlement of the pending differences, at which among the rest Athenian, Bœotian, and Corinthian envoys were all present. But, after prolonged debates, no approach was made to agreement; so that the congress was on the point of breaking up, when Kleobûlus and Xenarês, together with many of their partisans,[37] originated, in concert with the Bœotian and Corinthian deputies, a series of private underhand manœuvres for the dissolution of the Athenian alliance. This was to be effected by bringing about a separate alliance between Argos and Sparta, which the Spartans sincerely desired, and would grasp at in preference, so these ephors affirmed, even if it cost them the breach of their new tie with Athens. The Bœotians were urged, first to become allies of Argos themselves, and then to bring Argos into alliance with Sparta. But it was farther essential that they should give up Panaktum to Sparta, so that it might be tendered to the Athenians in exchange for Pylos; for Sparta could not easily go to war with them while they remained masters of the latter.[38]