To the Lacedæmonian ephors this application was eminently acceptable, the very event which they had been manœuvring underhand to bring about: and negotiations were opened, in which the Argeian envoys at first proposed that the disputed possession of Thyrea should be referred to arbitration. But they found their demand met by a peremptory negative, the Lacedæmonians refusing to enter upon such a discussion, and insisting upon simple renewal of the peace now at an end. At last the Argeian envoys, eagerly bent upon keeping the question respecting Thyrea open, in some way or other, prevailed upon the Lacedæmonians to assent to the following singular agreement. Peace was concluded between Athens and Sparta for fifty years; but if at any moment within that interval, excluding either periods of epidemic or periods of war, it should suit the views of either party to provoke a combat by chosen champions of equal number for the purpose of determining the right to Thyrea, there was to be full liberty of doing so; the combat to take place within the territory of Thyrea itself, and the victors to be interdicted from pursuing the vanquished beyond the undisputed border of either territory. It will be recollected, that about one hundred and twenty years before this date, there had been a combat of this sort by three hundred champions on each side, in which, after desperate valor on both sides, the victory as well as the disputed right still remained undetermined. The proposition made by the Argeians was a revival of this old practice of judicial combat: nevertheless, such was the alteration which the Greek mind had undergone during the interval, that it now appeared a perfect absurdity, even in the eyes of the Lacedæmonians, the most old-fashioned people in Greece.[43] Yet since they hazarded nothing, practically, by so vague a concession, and were supremely anxious to make their relations smooth with Argos, in contemplation of a breach with Athens, they at last agreed to the condition, drew up the treaty, and placed it in the hands of the envoys to carry back to Argos. Formal acceptance and ratification, by the Argeian public assembly, was necessary to give it validity: should this be granted, the envoys were invited to return to Sparta at the festival of the Hyakinthia, and there go through the solemnity of the oaths.