the Corinthian Gulf. The Spartans sent Polemarchus with some galleys to oppose him; but their commander was soon after slain, and Pollis, who took his place, was compelled, by a wound which he received in another engagement, to resign it to Herippidas. Herippidas seems to have driven the Corinthians from their station at Rhium; and Teleutias, who succeeded him, recovered the complete mastery of the gulf, and was thus enabled, as we have seen,* to co-operate with Agesilaus at Lechæum. master's consent, he did not scruple privately to supply Antalcidas with money for the purpose of raising a navy to carry on the war with the states which were still acknowledged as allies of Persia; and, having drawn Conon to Sardis, he threw him into prison, on the pretext that he had abused his trust, and had employed the king's forces for the aggrandizement of Athens. He then repaired to court to report his proceedings and to consult the royal pleasure. It was, perhaps, rather through some court intrigue or vague suspicion, than a delib site to that of Tiribazus, that Artaxerxes detained him at court, and sent Struthas down to fill his place. Struthas had, perhaps, witnessed the Asiatic campaigns of Agesilaus, and could not all at once get rid of the impression that the Spartans were his master's most formidable enemies. He therefore immediately made his return to Sparta, for his misconduct-to invade the king's territory. Thinbron, if it is the same person, had not learned wisdom from experience. He was addicted to the pleasures of the table, careless, and improvident in the discharge of his duties. In the inroads which he made from Ephesus and from the lower vale of the Mæander, into the satrapy of Struthas, while he suffered his troops to range over the country for plunder, he paid little attention to their safety, and, when they were attacked, would succour them in as negligent and disorderly a manner as if he thought his presence alone was sufficient to scare the enemy away. Struthas took advantage of his failings, and, one day that he had gone out at the head of a small party to attack some of the Persian cavalry who had been purposely thrown in his way, suddenly appeared with a superior force, slew him and a flute-player named Thersander, the favourite companion of his convivial hours, and defeated the rest of his army, as it came up after him, with great slaughter. But this partial success did not diminish the alarm with which the Spartan government view-erate purpose of adopting a line of policy oppoed the operations of Conon, who was proceeding to restore the Athenian dominion on the coasts and in the islands of the Egean. It perceived that it was necessary to change its policy with regard to the court of Persia, and for the present, at least, to drop the design of conquest in Asia, and to confine itself to the object of counteracting the efforts of the Atheni-known his intention of siding with the Atheans, and establishing its own supremacy among nians and their allies. The Spartan governthe European Greeks; and it did not despair of ment, perhaps too hastily, concluding that their making the Persian court subservient to these prospect of amicable dealings with Persia was ends. For this purpose, Antalcidas, a dexterous now quite closed, determined to renew hostilipolitician of Lysander's school, was sent to Ti-ties in Asia, and sent Thimbron-apparently ribazus, who was now occupying the place of the same officer whom we have already seen Tithraustes in Western Asia, to negotiate a commanding there, and who had been fined, on peace. His mission awakened the apprehensions of the hostile confederacy, and envoys were sent from Athens, Boeotia, Corinth, and Argos, to defeat his attempts, and to support the interests of the allies at the satrap's court. Antalcidas, however, made proposals highly agreeable to Tiribazus, and accompanied them with arguments which convinced the satrap that his master's interest perfectly coincided with that of Sparta. He renounced all claim on the part of his government to the Greek cities in Asia, and was willing that they should remain subject to the king's authority. For the islands and the other towns he asked nothing but independence. Thus, he observed, no motive for war between Greece and Persia would be left. The king could gain nothing by it, and would have no reason to fear either Athens or Sparta so long as the other Greek states remained independent. Tiribazus was perfectly satisfied, but had not authority to close with these overtures, at least against the will of the states which were at present in alliance with his master; and they refused to accede to a treaty on these terms. We should have wished to know what objections they alleged; but Xenophon has only mentioned the grounds on which they were averse to it. The Athenians feared that, by assenting to the principle which was proposed as the basis of the treaty, they should forfeit their claim, not only to maritime dominion, but even to the islands of Lemnos, Imbrus, and Scyrus, which they were accustomed to consider as parts of their own territory. The Thebans dreaded the loss of their sovereignty in Boeotia; the Argives, that they should be compelled to abandon their hold upon Corinth. They probably grounded their opposition on very different arguments; and, though they did not convince Tiribazus, they succeeded in putting an end to the public negotiation. But, though the satrap did not venture openly to enter into alliance with Sparta without his Above, p. 571. Diphridas was sent from Sparta to collect the scattered remains of his army, and to raise fresh troops, to defend the allied cities, and carry on the war with Struthas; and, as he was much superior to Thimbron in energy and self-command, he soon repaired the consequences of his predecessor's misconduct, and, among other advantages, captured Tigranes, the sonin-law of Struthas, with his wife, as they were on their way to Sardis. Their ransom afforded an ample supply for the payment of his troops. He was brought over by a squadron of eight galleys, which the Spartan government sent, under the command of Ecdicus, at the request of their Rhodian partisans, to wrest Rhodes from the sway of the democratical party and the Athenians. But Ecdicus, on his arrival at Cnidus, found that the democratical Rhodians were superior to their adversaries both by sea and land, and that their naval force doubled his own, so that he was forced to remain inactive him to Greece, that, if affairs there should come | 6000 infantry and 600 cavalry. Argos appears as the most powerful, or the most zealous in the anti-Laconian cause; she furnished 7000 heavy infantry, while the Thebans, weakened by the revolt of Orchomenus, sent but 5000, and Corinth no more than 3000. But the want of union, or of an efficient control, was felt no less in the field than it had been in the council. The Thebans were not so desirous of victory as they were concerned for their own safety; and to secure this, did not scruple to sacrifice their allies, and to endanger the common cause. Xenophon at least whose prejudices, however, render his testimony still more suspicious against them than against his own countrymen to a prosperous issue, they might escort him back to Asia. But it seems that the spirit in which this vote was passed by the assembly was not that which prevailed among the troops, who were generally averse to the expedition; and Agesilaus, having appointed Euxenus, with 4000 men, to guard the Greek cities, thought it necessary to rouse their emulation, and that of the principal officers, by prizes proportioned to the numbers and condition of the forces which should follow him to Greece. The more effectually to secure the result of their competition, he appointed a place on the European side of the Hellespont for the review of the army, and the distribution of the prizes, which consisted-sarcastically charges them with having deof ornamented armour and weapons, and golden crowns, to the value, in the whole, of not less than four talents. A small sum, as Xenophon observes, in comparison with those which the competitors laid out upon their various equipments for the sake of the reward. The prizes were awarded by a tribunal composed of three-the Athenians succeeded to the left wing, and Spartan judges, and one from each of the allied cities. Agesilaus then set forward on his march, along the road which Xerxes had taken on his expedition to Greece. But in the mean while the Spartan government found itself compelled to take active measures for counteracting the movements of the hostile confederacy. About the same time that Agesilaus received the order which recalled him from Asia, a congress was held at Corinth by the states leagued against Sparta,* to deliberate on the plan of the next campaign; and Timolaus, a Corinthian deputy, reminding the assembly that a stream was weakest near its sources, advised that they should carry their arms at once to the border of Laconia, and meet the enemy before he had swelled his forces with the contingents of the tributary cities of Peloponnesus: "it would be easiest and safest to stifle the hornets in their nest." This advice was adopted; but its execution was prevented by the causes which usually retard the operations of confederate armies, where there is no supreme authority. While the allies were debating on the mode of sharing the command among them, and on their order of battle, the Lacedæmonian army, under Aristodemus, the guardian of the young king Agesipolis, had crossed the frontier, had been strengthened by the forces of Tegea and Mantinea, and reached the territory of Sicyon without opposition. Here, indeed, it found the defile called Epieicea guarded by a body of light troops, which gave it some annoyance on its passage; but it descended safely into the maritime plain, which it ravaged as it pursued its march eastward, and finally encamped at the distance of little more than a mile from the enemy, who had taken up a position behind the bed of the torrent or rivulet called the Nemea.+ In numbers the northern allies were considerably superior; for they had brought 24,000 heavy-armed into the field, while on the other side the regular infantry amounted only to 13,500. Their cavalry, also, was more than twice as numerous as the enemy's. Sparta and Athens, we may observe, contributed each precisely the same number of foot and horse Diodor., xiv., 82. + See Leake, Morea, iii., p. 374. layed to engage so long as they occupied the left wing, which faced the Lacedæmonians ; and he intimates that they alleged the sinister aspect of the victims as a pretext to cloak their timidity; but when-either by means of some manœuvre, or according to an established order they found themselves in the other, and opposed to the Achæans, then, says the historian, they immediately announced that the sacrifices were propitious, and issued orders to prepare for battle. Yet, even in their dispositions for the action, they neglected the regulations which had been previously adopted by common consent, according to which the line of battle was to have been uniformly sixteen deep, and, adhering to their own practice, gave a much greater depth to their phalanx; probably not less than five-and-twenty, as at Delium. But, besides thus contracting the length of their line, as they advanced towards the enemy, they leaned more and more to the right; the constant usage, as we have seen, in the ancient battles,† while the Lacedæmonians, with the like object, inclined no less in the opposite direction. The result was that, when the engagement began, the Athenians found four out of their ten divisions, answering to the tribes, in front of the Tegeans, while the remaining six were left to sustain the whole force of the Lacedæmonians. In every other part of the line victory was at first on the side of the northern allies, who broke and pursued the enemy; but the Lacedæmonians outflanked, and easily overpowered the Athenians opposed to them, who were little more than half as numerous, and, at the expense of a very few lives on their own side, made a great slaughter. Having driven their immediate antagonists off the field with so little effort and loss, they advanced, untired and in good order, to meet the other divisions of the enemy as they returned from the pursuit of their defeated opponents; and falling in with them separately, before they had recovered from their disorder, overcame them, nearly as the surviving Horatius, in the Roman legend, vanquishes the victorious Curiatii. The four Athenian tribes, which had routed the Tegeans, were alone fortunate enough to escape. The fugitives sought shelter in Corinth, but found the gates closed against them through a temporary ascendency of the Laconian party. They then returned to the position which they had left in the morning | phon-occupied with the exploits of Agesilaus on the Nemea. This victory cost the Lacedæ--passes over the steps that led to this event, monians only eight lives, though their allies lost 1100, the enemy 2800.* It seems as if the terror of their name stifled all resistance. which produced a most important change in the whole aspect of affairs both in Asia and Europe, in total silence; though the successful endeav ours of one of his most illustrious countrymen to restore the independence and power of Ath ens, might have seemed not less interesting than the marauding adventures of his Spartan hero. Conon, after his escape from Ægos-potami, had been hospitably welcomed at Cyprus by Evagoras, who had taken advantage of a revolution which overthrew a preceding dynasty at Salamis, and had raised himself by his courage and prudence to the throne, which, as a descendant of Teucer, he might claim with some show of a legitimate title. Here Conon con progress of events, waiting for an opportunity of rendering such service to his country as might enable him to return to it as its benefactor. The war in which Sparta soon afterward engaged with the power which had enabled her to triumph over Athens, opened a fairer prospect; and it is clear that he actively availed himself of it for the accomplishment of his main end. But the confused and contradictory statements of the later writers render it difficult to fill up the blank which Xenophon has left. Many of them mention a journey made by Conon to the Persian court, and some in such a manner that it seems as if it could only be re The news of the battle of Corinth reached Agesilaus on his march homeward, at Amphipolis, where he had arrived after having made his way, partly by threats, partly by force, through the Thracian tribes.+ Dercyllidas was the bearer; and, at the request of Agesilaus, undertook to convey it to the Greek cities in Asia, with a renewal of the promise which he had made to them at parting, to return as soon as the state of affairs in Greece should permit. Agesilaus then continued his march through Macedonia, where his bold countenance overawed all opposition, as it had done in Thrace.tinued, it seems, for some years to watch the But when he arrived in Thessaly he found the Thessalians, who, as the hereditary enemies of the Phocians, were all in alliance with the Beotians, bent on obstructing his passage. He had formed his infantry in a hollow square, and placed half of his cavalry in front and half in the rear. The charges of the Thessalian horse, which hovered on his rear, grew more and more annoying; and he was at length induced to send the foremost division of his cavalry, all but those who guarded his own person, to protect the rear. Here they drew up as for a regular action; but the enemy, seeing them supported by the infantry, did not choose to risk a battle, and, wheeling round, began slowly to re-ferred to the period preceding the death of Tistreat, and were followed by them at an equally gentle pace. Agesilaus saw at once the error which the enemy had committed, and the opportunity which his own men were flinging away, and despatched the troop of horse which remained with him to give the word for a vigorous pursuit, and to set the example themselves. The Thessalians were now so warmly pressed that they had no time to wheel round and face the enemy. Many did not attempt it, and sought safety only in flight. But those who made the attempt, and among them their commander Polymachus, were taken in flank before they could complete their evolution, and were most of them slain. The flight became a mere rout, and did not cease until the fugitives had reached Mount Narthacium, part of the range of hills which skirt the Gulf of Pagasæ. Agesilaus pursued his march without farther interruption, well pleased with the victory he had gained over the most renowed cavalry of Greece with squadrons formed entirely by his own training. His success, indeed, was owing less to their skill and courage than to the ene-self was intrusted with a share in the managemy's oversight. But the impression which the report would produce might not be the less favourable. The next day he crossed the chain of Othrys, and had a friendly country to traverse as far as the borders of Boeotia. saphernes.* It appears, indeed, to have been one of Conon's objects to counteract the policy of Tissaphernes, and to induce Artaxerxes to withdraw his confidence from him, and to transfer it to Pharnabazus, with whom he seems to have connected himself as soon as the satrap's friendly relations to Sparta had ceased. And we should be inclined to believe, that one result of this journey, if it took place in this period, was to urge those naval preparations of the Persian court which gave occasion to the expedition of Agesilaus; and that the extraordinary commission by which Agesilaus was invested with the supreme command of the navy was an effect of the alarm excited at Sparta by Conon's machinations. Still, it must be owned that it is not easy to reconcile these accounts with the more authentic narrative of Ctesias, who, in the meager epitome of his Persian History now extant, appears to represent Conon as for the first time opening a correspondence with Artaxerxes while he remained at Salamis. + Ctesias him ment of the negotiation, and he is said to have forged an addition to Conon's letter, by which the king was requested to send down his physician, as a man who might be useful in his naval affairs. But, according to his own account, Artaxerxes, of his own accord, employed him to bear a letter to Conon, and he was probably chosen for this purpose to give Conon the stronger assurance of the king's favour and He here received intelligence of an event which deeply affected him, both as a private and a public calamity, and, while it wounded his domestic feelings, threatened ruin to the most cherished of his ambitious projects: this was the defeat and death of his brother-in-law, Paus., ., 9, 2. Nepos, Conon, 3. Wesseling, on Pisander, whom, as we have seen, he had in-non's journey to a later period, in contradiction to these Diodorus, xiv., 81, censures his author for referring Cotrusted with the command of the fleet. Xeno- statements, of which he says, " omnibus aperta atque expio * Diodor., xiv., 83. + Ibid., xiv., 63. Plut., Ages., 16. rata sunt." confidence. The letter seems to have contain- | he himself went up to Babylon, where he had ed a commission empowering Conon to raise a fleet at the expense of the Persian treasury, and to act as admiral in the king's service under Pharnabazus. Ctesias was also charged with a letter, the contents of which cannot be so easily divined, to the Spartan government, and he ran some risk in carrying it; for he was put upon his trial, perhaps on the charge of conspiring with Conon against the Spartan interest, but was acquitted. an interview with Artaxerxes, who granted all his requests, and, at his own desire, appointed Pharnabazus his colleague. Pharnabazus appears to have taken command of the Phoenician galleys; the Greek squadron remained under the immediate orders of Conon. As they sailed westward along the coast of Syria, Conon's squadron being some way ahead, they fell in with Pisander coming from Cnidus. According to Diodorus, his fleet consisted of eighty-five galleys, and that of the enemy amounted altogether to no more than ninety. But Xenophon informs us that Conon's squadron alone was so much stronger than Pisander's fleet as to spread dismay among the enemy, and that on his ap Peloponnesians immediately took to flight.* The rest were driven on shore, where Pisander, remaining with his ship to the last, fell, Spartanlike, sword in hand. Agesilaus thought it necessary to guard by a stratagem against the effect which the tidings of this disaster might have produced on his Asiatic troops, who had followed him with reluctance, and had now cause to be disheartened and uneasy for the safety of their homes. He therefore announced that, though Pisander himself had been slain, his fleet had been victorious; and he proceeded to offer a thanksgiving sacrifice for this joyful news. The success of this artifice, Xenophon says, was visible in the first skirmish that took place between his men and the enemy. It appears from the narrative of Diodorus,* compared with that of Xenophon,† that Conon must have entered the Persian service before Agesilaus took the command in Asia. For we find that Pharax, the Spartan admiral, in the course of the expedition which he made in con-proach many of the allies in the left wing of the junction with Dercyllidas against Caria, laid siege to Caunus, where Conon was then lying with forty galleys, but was forced to retire by Tissaphernest and Pharnabazus, who marched with a strong force to its relief. It seems to have been not long after that Conon, having increased his fleet to eighty galleys, sailed to the Lycian Chersonesus, to take advantage of some movements which he had himself excited in Rhodes. The democratical Rhodians, animated by the assurance of his support, notwithstanding the presence of the Peloponnesian armament under Pharax, revolted from Sparta, expelled their political adversaries, compelled Pharax to withdraw, and received Conon and his fleet into their harbour. This important acquisition was attended by another of considerable value. The Spartans had concluded an alliance with Nephereus, or Nepherites, who at this time held › Egypt in revolt against the Persian king; and he had sent them a present of rigging for a hun--assembled in the plain of Coronea. He bad dred galleys and a large quantity of corn. The Egyptian convoy was on its passage to Greece when the revolution took place at Rhodes, and, sailing in ignorance of the event along the coast of the island, was intercepted by Conon. We have already had occasion to notice the manner in which the revolt of Rhodes appears to have been connected with the fate of Dorieus.( It was perhaps not before the following spring -that of 396, in which Agesilaus began his expedition to Asia-that Conon was re-enforced by an armament of ten Cilician and eighty Phonician galleys, commanded by a prince of Sidon. But we do not learn that he made any use of his powerful navy during the campaigns of Agesilaus; and we are informed that the want of money kept him for a time inactive. It seems most probable that he now made a journey to the Persian court for the purpose of obtaining supplies. Diodorus distinctly relates that he left the fleet in the care of two Athenians, named Hieronymus and Nicodemus, while + Hell., iii., 2. * xiv., 79. Diodorus, xiv., 79, has the name of Artaphernes. But when it is considered that Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus were at this time acting together in Caria, it can scarcely be doubted that either Diodorus has made one of his usual mistakes about the name, or that his text is corrupt. ◊ Above, p. 472. Isocr., Paneg., p. 79, says that, for three years preceding the battle of Cnidus, Artaxerxes suffered his navy to be blockaded by a fleet of no more than 100 galleys, and kept his troops fifteen months without their pay; and that the armament under Conou was frequently on the point of being broken up (πολλάκις ἂν διελύθησαν). He found the whole force of the hostile confederacy-perhaps not inferior in numbers to the army which had been defeated near Corinth The collected some re-enforcements from the Greek *Diodorus, xiv., 83, may have mistaken the number of Conon's Greek squadron for that of the whole Phnician fleet. It is, however, also possible that Xenophon adopted the Spartan official account of the battle without investPerhaps the Nicophemus who will afterward be men-gating the details. Indeed, a difference of five would hardly tioned as Conon's intimate friend. satisfy his πολὺ ἐλαττόνων. menians, had fallen upon his baggage. He im- tians, and Athenians, had an equal share in the mediately marched against them; and the The-conspiracy, or whether he is only speaking of bans, seeing the battle lost, were only anxious the foreign garrison. His horror is chiefly exto rejoin their allies, who had taken refuge in cited by the impiety of the murderers, who sethe hills, and for this purpose consolidated their lected a holyday for the deed, that they might ranks in the hopes of breaking through his line. be the more likely to find their enemies out of He would have acted, Xenophon thinks, more doors, and in the execution of their purpose like a prudent general, if he had opened a pas- paid no regard to the most sacred things and sage for them, and then cut them down as they places, but stained even the altars and images fled. He was perhaps swayed by personal re- of the gods with the blood of their victims. sentment, and in the hope of a more complete, Unhappily, this was no new excess of party though a less cheap and easy victory, stopped rage; but perhaps few scenes of this kind had their retreat. An obstinate conflict ensued, in been planned with more ferocious coolness, or which he received some severe wounds, but accompanied with a greater number of shockdefeated the enemy, and scattered them in all ing circumstances, though it must not be fordirections. He had just been carried back to gotten that it is Xenophon who describes it. his camp, when he was informed that some Suspicions, however, had been previously eneighty of the fugitives had taken shelter in the tertained of the plot by Pasimelus, one of the neighbouring sanctuary of the Itonian Athene. persecuted party, and at the time of the tumult Xenophon considers it as a memorable triumph a body of the younger citizens was assembled of piety over revenge, that he respected the with him, in a place of exercise, outside the asylum, and dismissed the suppliants in safety. walls. They immediately ran up to seize the Though the victory was clear, the enemy still Acrocorinthus, where they maintained themremained at hand in sufficient force to have re-selves for a time against the attacks of their newed the combat. The next day, therefore, enemies; but an unpropitious omen, probably Agesilaus ordered Gylis, the officer next in strengthening the consciousness of their weakcommand, to draw up the army in battle array, ness, made them resolve to withdraw, and to wearing their crowns in token of victory, and seek safety in exile. Yet, notwithstanding the to erect the trophy to martial music. But the impious treachery of their enemies, they were Thebans were not disposed to contest his tri-induced by the persuasions of their friends and umph, and applied for a truce to bury their slain. Agesilaus then proceeded with a few followers to Delphi, to sacrifice a tenth of the spoil which he had collected in the course of his Asiatic But their fears for their personal safety had expedition. It amounted to not less than 100 no sooner subsided than the state of public aftalents. Gylis was ordered to invade Locris, fairs again began to appear insupportable, and which had given the first occasion or pretext they were ready to run any risk for the sake of of the war. But after a day's plunder, the Lace-a change. The opposite party had gone so far dæmonian troops returning last to their camp, were attacked by the Locrians, and having to make their way in the dark, over difficult and unknown ground, suffered some loss; Gylis himself was slain, with many of his officers; and it was only by the timely succour of their allies that they were saved from a more serious disaster. The army was then disbanded, and Agesilaus returned home by sea. The reputation which he had gained by his victories was heightened, when it was observed that they had wrought no change in his habits, and that he conformed to the laws and fashions of Sparta with as much simplicity as if he had never been in a foreign land. relatives, and by the oaths of the leading men of the opposite party, to abandon this intention and return to their homes. in their enmity to Sparta, or in their zeal for democracy, as to do their utmost towards establishing a complete unity, both of civil rights and of territory, between Corinth and Argos. The landmarks which separated the two states had been removed, so that the name either of Corinth or of Argos might be applied to the whole. But since it was Argive influence that had brought about this union-since the Argive institutions had been adopted, and the Argive franchise communicated to the Corinthians→→ the discontented had some reason to complain that Corinth had lost her independence and dignity, while Argos had gained an increase of territory by the transaction. But what they bore still more impatiently was the loss of their own rank and influence, which were totally extinguished by the union; they no longer enjoyed any exclusive privileges-any rights which they did not share with the whole Argive-Corinthian commonalty; and this was a franchise which they valued no more than the condition of an alien. They therefore resolved on a desperate effort for restoring Corinth to her former station in Greece, and for recovering their own But Corinth still continued to be the theatre of war. A Lacedæmonian garrison occupied Sicyon, and made frequent inroads into the Corinthian territory. The allies of Corinth were well pleased to see themselves thus exempt from the calamities of war at her expense. But the party among the Corinthians which, on political grounds, desired to renew their connexion with Sparta, derived new motives from this state of things to encourage them in their designs, and they began to hold private meet-station in Corinth. ings to concert measures for restoring peace. Their movements were observed by their adversaries, who determined to counteract them by one of those atrocious massacres which so frequently disfigure the pages of Greek history. We do not know what credit may be due to Xenophon when he intimates that all the principal allies of Corinth, the Argives, and BooVOL. I.-4 C Pasimelus and Alcimenes took the lead in this enterprise. They obtained a secret interview with Praxitas, the Spartan commander at Sicyon, and proposed to admit him and his troops within the walls that joined Corinth with Lechæum, her port on the western gulf. He knew the men, and embraced their offer; and, at an appointed hour of night, came, with a |