A long-standing rivalry, filled to the brim with warfare and mutual dislike – that is the picture provided in most investigations of Atheno-Boiotian relations. These often, however, employ a shorter chronological framework, rather than a diachronic overview of the Archaic and Classical periods (550–323 BCE), as will be given here. Moving through this time frame, the fluctuations in outlook between the two will be examined, illustrating that the notion of long-standing enmity with brief moments of friendship portray a faulty impression of this relationship. The wider perspective allows for a more complex picture to emerge. It also brings to the fore the issues of historiography, or how the silence or cursory treatment of events in our sources should not automatically be taken as evidence of periods of hostility, such as after the Persian Wars. This analysis of these periods betrays the intentions of our (literary) sources and, in turn, the assumptions of later scholars in following them. Instead, the neighbourly relationship was mostly one of peaceful co-existence, only occasionally disturbed by the threat of a common foe or through direct warfare.