That Thucydides considered the use

That Thucydides considered the use of embassies crucial to the distinction between conditions of peace and conditions of war can be seen also from two passages describing the period immediately following the Peace of Nicias. In 5.35.2 Thucydides says that "during this entire summer there were έπιμΐΐξίαι between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians." This is the same word he had used in 1.146 and in 2.1 to define war and peace. It is used in all three passages in a semitechnical sense. Thucydides emphasizes his point later in the same chapter (5.35.8): "during this entire summer, then, there was ησυχία and φοδοι to each other.