Book 7
4.8
Men of Lacedaemon, we have come to you as your friends, and we ask that in case you see any safety for us if we persist in the war, you make it known to us; but in case you judge our situation to be hopeless, that you join with us in concluding peace if it is to your advantage also; for there is no one in the world along with whom we should more gladly gain safety than with you; if, however, you consider that it is to your advantage to continue the war, we beg you to allow us to conclude peace. For if we are saved, we might perhaps make ourselves useful to you again at some future time; whereas if we are now destroyed, it is plain that we shall never be of service in the future.
4.9
Upon hearing these words the Lacedaemonians not only advised the Corinthians to conclude the peace, but gave permission to such of their other allies as preferred not to continue the war in company with them, to cease; as for themselves, however, they said that they would fight on and accept whatever fortune it pleased the deity to send, and that they would never submit to be deprived of what they had received from their fathers — Messene.
4.10
So the Corinthians, upon hearing these words, proceeded to Thebes to make the peace. The Thebans, however,366 B.C. wanted them to bind themselves to an alliance as well; but they replied that an alliance was not peace but an exchange of war, and they said that they had come to conclude a real peace, if the Thebans so pleased. And the Thebans, seized with admiration for them because, even though they were in peril, they refused to be involved in war with their benefactors, granted peace to them, to the Phliasians, and to those who had come with them to Thebes, with the condition that each party should keep its own territory. And on these terms the oaths were taken.
