Note on the Peace of Nikias
In the early part of the fourth century it was the regular practice for Athenian treaties to specify the authorities who were to swear the oath on either side, and, although the fifth-century material is more scanty, three clear instances suggest that the habit was already established by 425. The notable exception is the Peace of Nikias, and with it the Spartan alliance of 421, in which not the quality but the number is prescribed, seventeen from each city. Kirchhoff suggested that this odd number might be built up, on the Spartan side, from the two kings (who in fact head the list), the five ephors (the eponymous ephor Pleistolas comes third and the next four might be his colleagues; cf. Tod, GHI 99), and a board of ten. Kirchhoff refused to speculate about these ten beyond saying that it was a normal number, but this gap in his argument can perhaps be filled from a passage in Diodorus (below) which has received no satisfactory explanation. Normal Athenian practice would not oblige Athens to conform to the Spartan number, and if Kirchhoff is right we should perhaps suppose that Sparta asked for numerical parity. The next question will be, how the Athenians made up their seventeen.