chapter 30 (volume 4)._

_Plutarch, Lysander._

_Xenophon, Hellenica, book 2, chapter 1._

GREECE: B. C. 404. End of the Peloponnesian War. Fall of Athens.

See ATHENS: B. C. 404.

GREECE: B. C. 404-403. The Year of Anarchy at Athens. Reign of the Thirty.

See ATHENS: B. C. 404-403.

GREECE: B. C. 401-400. The expedition of Cyrus, and the Retreat of the Ten Thousand Greeks.

See PERSIA: B. C.,401-400.

GREECE: B. C. 399-387. Spartan war with Persia. Greek confederacy against Sparta. The Corinthian War. Peace of Antalcidas.

The successful retreat of the Ten Thousand from Cunaxa, through the length of the Persian dominions (B. C. 401-400), and the account which they brought of the essential hollowness of the power of the Great King, produced an important change among the Greeks in their estimate of the Persian monarchy as an enemy to be feared. Sparta became ashamed of having abandoned the Greek cities of Asia Minor to their old oppressors, as she did after breaking the strength of their protector, Athens, in the Peloponnesian War. When, therefore, the Persians began to lay siege to the coast cities which resisted them, Sparta found spirit enough to interfere (B. C. 399) and sent over a small army, into which the surviving Cyreans were also enlisted. The only immediate result was a truce with the Persian satrap. But, meantime, the Athenian general Conon—he who escaped with a few triremes from Ægospotami and fled to Cyprus—had there established relations with the Persian court at Susa and had acquired a great influence, which he used to bring about the creation of a powerful Persian armament against Sparta, himself in command. The news of this armament, reaching Sparta, provoked the latter to a more vigorous prosecution of the war in Asia Minor. King Agesilaus took the field in Ionia with a strong army and conducted two brilliant campaigns (B. C. 396-395), pointing the way, as it were, to the expedition of Alexander a couple of generations later. The most important victory won was on the Pactolus, not far from Sardis. But, in the midst of his successes, Agesilaus was called home by troubles which arose in Greece. Sparta, by her arrogance and oppressive policy, had already alienated all the Greek states which helped her to break down Athens in the Peloponnesian War. Persian agents, with money, had assisted her enemies to organize a league against her. Thebes and Athens, first, then Argos and Corinth, with several of the lesser states, became confederated in an agreement to overthrow her domination. In an attempt to crush Thebes, the Spartans were badly beaten at Haliartus (B. C. 395), where their famous Lysander, conqueror of Athens, was killed. Their power in central and northern Greece was virtually annihilated, and then followed a struggle with their leagued enemies for the control or the Corinthian isthmus, whence came the name of the Corinthian War. It was this situation of things at home which called back King Agesilaus from his campaigns in Asia Minor. He had scarcely crossed the Hellespont on his return, in July B. C. 394, before all his work in Asia was undone by an overwhelming naval victory achieved at Cnydus by the Athenian Conon, commanding the Persian-Phœnician fleet. With his veteran army, including the old Cyreans, now returning home after seven years of incredible adventures and hardships, he made his way through all enemies into Bœotia and fought a battle with the league at Coronea, in which he so far gained a victory that he held the field, although the fruits of it were doubtful. The Spartans on the isthmus had also just gained a considerable success near Corinth, on the banks of the Nemea. On the whole, the results of the war were in their favor, until Conon and the Persian satrap, Pharnabazus, came over with the victorious fleet from Cnydus and lent its aid to the league. The most important proceeding of Conon was to rebuild (B. C. 393), with the help of his Persian friends, the Long Walls of Athens, which the Peloponnesians had required to be thrown down eleven years before. By this means he restored to Athens her independence and secured for her a new career of commercial prosperity. During six years more the war was tediously prolonged, without important or decisive events, while Sparta intrigued to detach the Persian king from his Athenian allies and the latter intrigued to retain his friendship. In the end, all parties were exhausted—Sparta, perhaps, least so—and accepted a shameful peace which was practically dictated by the Persian and had the form of an edict or mandate from Susa, in the following terms: "The king, Artaxerxes, deems it just that the cities in Asia, with the islands of Clazomenae and Cyprus, should belong to himself; the rest of the Hellenic cities he thinks it just to leave independent, both small and great, with the exception of Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, which three are to belong to Athens as of yore. Should any of the parties concerned not accept this peace, I, Artaxerxes, will war against him or them with those who share my views. {1593} This will I do by land and by sea, with ships and with money." By this, called the Peace of Antalcidas (B. C. 387) from the Lacedæmonian who was instrumental in bringing it about, the Ionian Greeks were once more abandoned to the Persian king and his satraps, while Sparta, which assumed to be the administrator and executor of the treaty, was confirmed in her supremacy over the other Grecian states.

_Xenophon, Hellenica (translated by Dakyns), books 3-5 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN: _C. Sankey, The Spartan and Theban Supremacies, chapters 7-9._

_W. Mitford, History of Greece, chapters 24-25 (volume 4)._

_G. Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, volume 3; Persia, chapter 7._

GREECE: B. C. 385. Destruction of Mantinea by the Spartans.

The Mantineians, having displayed unfriendliness to Sparta during the Corinthian War, were required by the latter, after the Peace of Antalcidas, to demolish their walls. On their refusal, king Agesipolis was sent to subdue them. By damming up the waters of the river Ophis he flooded the city and brought it to terms. "The city of Mantineia was now broken up, and the inhabitants were distributed again into the five constituent villages. Out of four-fifths of the population each man pulled down his house in the city, and rebuilt it in the village near to which his property lay. The remaining fifth continued to occupy Mantineia as a village. Each village was placed under oligarchical government and left unfortified."

_G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 76 (volume 9)._

ALSO IN: _Xenophon, Hellenica, book 5, chapter 2._

GREECE: B. C. 383. The betrayal of Thebes to the Spartans.

When the Spartans sent their expedition against Olynthus, in 383 B. C., it marched in two divisions, the last of which, under Phoebidas, halted at Thebes, on the way, probably having secret orders to do so. "On reaching Thebes the troops encamped outside the city, round the gymnasium. Faction was rife within the city. The two polemarchs in office, Ismenias and Leontiades, were diametrically opposed, being the respective heads of antagonistic political clubs. Hence it was that, while Ismenias, ever inspired by hatred to the Lacedaemonians, would not come anywhere near the Spartan general, Leontiades, on the other hand, was assiduous in courting him; and when a sufficient intimacy was established between them, he made a proposal as follows: 'You have it in your power,' he said, addressing Phoebidas, 'this very day to confer supreme benefit on your country. Follow me with your hoplites, and I will introduce you into the citadel.'"

_Xenophon, Hellenica (translated by Dakyns), book 5, chapter 2 (volume 2)._

"On the day of the Thesmophoria, a religious festival celebrated by the women apart from the men, during which the acropolis, or Kadmeia, was consecrated to their exclusive use, Phœbidas, affecting to have concluded his halt, put himself in march to proceed as if towards Thrace; seemingly rounding the walls of Thebes, but not going into it. The Senate was actually assembled in the portico of the agora, and the heat of a summer's noon had driven everyone out of the streets, when Leontiades, stealing away from the Senate, hastened on horseback to overtake Phœbidas, caused him to face about, and conducted the Lacedæmonians straight up to the Kadmeia; the gates of which, as well as those of the town, were opened to his order as Polemarch. There were not only no citizens in the streets, but none even in the Kadmeia; no male person being permitted to be present at the feminine Thesmophoria; so that Phœbidas and his army became possessed of the Kadmeia without the smallest opposition. … The news of the seizure of the Kadmeia and of the revolution at Thebes [was] … received at Sparta with the greatest surprise, as well as with a mixed feeling of shame and satisfaction. Everywhere throughout Greece, probably, it excited a greater sensation than any event since the battle of Ægospotami. Tried by the recognised public law of Greece, it was a flagitions iniquity, for which Sparta had not the shadow of a pretence. … It stood condemned by the indignant sentiment of all Greece, unwillingly testified even by the philo-Laconian Xenophon himself. But it was at the same time an immense accession to Spartan power. … Phœbidas might well claim to have struck for Sparta the most important blow since Ægospotami, relieving her from one of her two really formidable enemies."

_G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 76._

ALSO IN: _C. Thirlwall, History of Greece,