name of the Boiotian confederacy. 'If you do not swear for yourselves and yourselves only,' said Agesilaos, 'you will be shut out from the treaty.' In the hope that they would thus bar themselves he hastened to lead an army across the border; but at Tegea he was met by Theban envoys who declared themselves ready to swear for Thebes alone.

The Persian King chose to regard the acceptance of the peace by the Spartans as an act of submission not less significant than the offering of earth and water. In the disgrace which it involved the one was as ignominious as the other; but otherwise the purposes of Sparta were fully achieved. She had obtained the sanction of the Persian King to a policy which isolated the Hellenic cities, at a time when there was no <confederate empire to break up except her own; and that the provisions of the peace should be applied within the limits of her own alliance was no part of her intention. In short, by Sparta the Peace of Antalkidas was adopted with the settled resolution to divide and govern; and all those of her acts, which might seem at first sight to have a different meaning, carry out in every instance this golden rule of despotism. In theory the Spartans by inforcing the Peace of Antalkidas restored to the several Greek states the absolute power of managing their own affairs and of making war upon one another. In practice Sparta was resolved that their armies should move only at her dictation, and that into her treasury should flow the tribute the gathering of which was denounced as the worst crime of imperial Athens.

The work was not so easy as the Spartans had hoped that it might be. Thebes had been eager to see Athens humbled: but she was not willing to give up her own Hegemonia over the Boiotian cities. There was danger in the disaffection of two of these cities, Thespiai and Orchomenos; and the Spartans resolved therefore on a measure which they might proclaim as an act of homage to the dearest feelings of the Greek heart. The fugitive Plataians, now living in Athens, were invited to return with their families to their old home. But their city was restored simply to be a thorn in the side of the Thebans; and a Spartan garrison inforced its obedience to the rules imposed on Spartan allies. (386 B.C.)

Their hand fell next on the Mantineians, who were accused of friendly feelings towards the Argives. Nothing more was

needed to justify the appearance of Spartan envoys with a demand not merely that the walls of the city should be thrown down, but that four-fifths of its inhabitants should make for themselves a home in four distinct townships. After a stout resistance the Mantineians yield to their fate, to find themselves. soon, as Xenophon would have us believe, vastly the better and happier for the change. If his picture be true, it is strangethat after the fight at Leuktra, barely fifteen years later, they should run with such feverish haste to restore the city from which they had been driven.

Elsewhere things were going not altogether as the Spartans would have wished. Athens was gradually increasing her scanty fleet, and the harbour of Peiraieus with its crowd of merchant vessels exhibited something like the stirring industry of former times. The islanders of the Egean, vexed by the raids of pirates, were learning that tribute paid for the protection of Athens whose interest it was to put down these marauders was a less costly burden than tribute paid to Sparta which cared nothing whether they were put down or not. Thus the influence of Athens was becoming constantly more widely felt, when Kleigenes, sent with other envoys from Akanthos, appeared at Sparta with the air of a man oppressed with a mysterious and dreadful secret. The Spartans could not be aware, he thought, of the terrible things then going on in Hellas. The Chalkidian city of Olynthos, which had taken advantage of the troubles of the Makedonian king Amyntas to lay the foundations of a confederacy, was extending to all its members the benefits of a common law and a common citizenship, of unrestricted intermarriage, of unfettered commerce and acquisition of property in land; and these terms were welcomed not only by some of their weaker and by some too of their less. insignificant neighbours, but by not a few Makedonian cities. The paramount need of securing a free area for the action of the new confederacy had now compelled the Olynthians to invite the adhesion of Akanthos and Apollonia; but the people of these cities wished to keep strictly to their own customs and to have nothing to do with their neighbours. Nor was this all. The Spartans might in some measure estimate the peril of the crisis, when they learnt that Boiotian and Athenian envoys were already at Olynthos, and that the Olynthians had resolved to invite all the Greek cities to enter into the new alliance. If then any

thing was to be done, it must be done at once.

The exclusive

bigotry of the good old times was a plant apt to wither away under a moderate amount of sunshine; and if this sentiment failed them, there would be nothing left to which the Spartans could appeal.

It is painful to think of the bright dawn of the Olynthian confederacy as closing in darkness and blood; but in such a case the Spartans were not likely to hesitate. The picture drawn by Kleigenes was one every detail of which would rouse their fiercest antipathy. The work which it depicted was the work of Athens, purged, it may be, of many defects and some blots which the circumstances attending the growth of her empire made it impossible for Athens to avoid, but the same work still, as extending to all alike the benefits of law, compelling all to sacrifice just as much of their independence as was needful for the general welfare, and insisting on the co-operation of all towards the maintenance of an order essential to the safety alike of the rich and the poor. To use the metaphor of the Corinthian Timolaos (p. 296), the Spartans resolved to burn the wasps in their nest; and circumstances favoured the enterprise. (383 B.C.)

The great hindrance which lay in their way was Thebes; and so long as she did not break the terms of the Peace of Antalkidas, the task of dealing with her might seem perhaps perplexing. But Spartan zeal was not easily baffled. While Eudamidas was ordered to lead his men with the utmost speed to Olynthos, his brother Phoibidas received secret instructions to do what he could for Sparta as he passed Thebes. There the philo-Lakonian party was eagerly awaiting him. During his stay the day came round for the feast of Thesmophoria, and according to the old usage the Kadmeia was given over to the sole occupation of the women. On that day Phoibidas, pretending to set out on his northward march, was called back by Leontiades who, leading him straight to the Akropolis, opened its gates. (382 B.C.)

Hastening to the senate-house where the council was assembled Leontiades addressed them as polemarch, telling them that the Spartans had possession of the citadel and of all their women, but that no one would be the worse for the change except traitors. Of these, he added, Ismenias, the head of the anti-Spartan party, was the chief; and by his orders Ismenias

was arrested. Neither by the terms of the Peace of Antalkidas, nor on any other grounds had the court before which he was tried any jurisdiction; but his death was a necessity for Leontiades and his partisans, and Ismenias accordingly was executed.

Phoibidas had done a service to his country scarcely inferior to that of Lysandros at Aigospotamoi; and both acts were alike in the blackness of the treachery by which they were accomplished. In Sparta the tidings called forth expressions of indignation which in a few may have been sincere. With his usual straightforwardness Agesilaos cut the matter short by telling them that the only question for debate was whether the action of Phoibidas was for the welfare of Sparta or whether it was not. In the former case he deserved only gratitude. Phoibidas was removed from his command and sentenced to a fine probably never paid; and here, so far as the Spartans were concerned, the matter ended. Their garrison continued to hold the Kadmeia; and their army was enabled to act against the Olynthians without dread of a formidable enemy in the rear. Even thus the task of subduing them was not easy. For three years they held out: but at last famine did its work. Olynthos submitted, and became a member of the Spartan confederacy (379 B.C.). Her Makedonian allies passed again under the sway of their king Amyntas who had both pleaded and fought against the Olynthians with the utmost earnestness. His zeal was amply justified. The confederacy thus overthrown would have been probably an insurmountable barrier in the way of his ambition and of the more daring energy of his successors.

In seizing the Theban Kadmeia, the Spartans fell upon a city with which they were at peace. The enthusiasm even of Xenophon was quenched by this act of treachery; and his eyes became suddenly opened to the fact that Spartan promises of independence and freedom were nothing but a cheat and a snare. Visible signs of Divine Judgement were, in his belief, not long wanting. At no time, to all appearance, had the empire of Sparta been more mighty; at no time had her heel pressed more heavily upon her allies, or in truer phrase her slaves. The only city of which she had a genuine dread was kept down by a Spartan garrison. In this very city their power was to receive a terrible blow, and seven men alone were to inflict it. Of these men the most conspicuous were Pelopidas

and Mellon. With their fellow-exiles at Athens they had waited long in the hopes of some more open resistance: but the bounds of their patience were now reached, and they resolved to do by assassination the work which they could not achieve in open war. Of the attempt itself it may be enough to say that the conspirators had the aid of Phyllidas, the secretary of the polemarchs, in gaining access to their victims, two of whom they were thus enabled to slay at a banquet. Leontiades after a hard struggle was killed in his own house.

With the secret conspiracy Epameinondas would have nothing to do; but when the tyrants had ceased to live, he was among the first to appear in the Agora and among the most zealous in calling the people to arms. Availing themselves of the enthusiasm of the moment, Pelopidas and Mellon, who had been appointed Boiotarchs, resolved to carry the citadel by assault; and the order for attack had been already given when the Spartan commander proposed a capitulation. The Thebans willingly allowed them to depart with the honours of war; but no honours awaited them at home. Two, if we are to believe Diodoros, were put to death; the third was punished with a crushing fine, and the king Kleombrotos was dispatched to take vengeance on the Thebans.

With one-third of his forces Kleombrotos had left at Thespiai the harmost Sphodrias with orders to do all that he could against the Thebans. The memory of the recent exploit of Teleutias made him think that more might be done against Athens. In short he resolved to attempt by land what Teleutias had achieved by sea. But he started from Thespiai too late to reach Peiraieus before dawn. The morning found him at Eleusis, nearly ten miles from the harbour. He at once retreated, doing, however, as much mischief as he could to the inhabitants

by the way. The indignation of the Athenians went for nothing. Sphodrias was acquitted at Sparta, because his son Kleonymos stood in an infamous relation to Archidamos son of Agesilaos. The argument of Agesilaos went straight to its mark. The guilt of Sphodrias, he said, could not possibly be denied; but it was not the less impossible to put to death one who, whether as boy, youth, or man, had stood among the foremost of his countrymen. Sparta could not spare such citizens, and justice must in such cases give place to expedience.

The decision saved Sphodrias: but it called into existence a