T HE PROBLEM of the so-called Peace of Callias claims the attention of most students of Athenian history in the fifth century B.C. at one time or another, and since the mid-1950's especially there has been a veritable spate of articles on this topic.' H. B. Mattingly has summed up the modern position succinctly: Scholars seem unable either to leave the problem alone or to solve it satisfactorily.2 One reason, perhaps, for the perennial attraction of this topic is that it is completely typical of the fifth century, and it is probably true to say of this period in general, and especially of the Pentecontaetia, that everything for which we do not possess unimpeachable and datable fifth-century evidence is suspect or, at best, floating in a sort of chronological limbo: our view of the period is today more fluid than it has been at any time in the present century.3 In this paper I propose to re-examine in chronological order the literary references to the Peace, since this is the only unequivocal evidence which exists: by this means we should be able to establish the correct historical context for it. And since the existing data for the Peace are of the fourth century in origin, I shall leave fifth-century considerations until later.4