Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/71

 ATHENS AND SPARTA 59 or mercenaries, who, after the death of Cyrus, had to fight their way across the mountains to the Black Sea and get back to the west coast of Asia Minor. This retreat of the 10,000 has been made famous by the account of it written by Xenophon. The Spartan King Agesilaus began a series of campaigns against the Persians in Asia Minor. He was recalled, how- ever, to Europe, where the Spartan supremacy was spartan being challenged; a disaster befell her arms in a Supremacy, quarrel with Thebes, and a great league was immediately formed against her. Agesilaus, returning by land from Asia Minor, was met by the allies at Coronea, where he was victorious. But in the meanwhile the fleet which had been intended to co-operate in the Asiatic campaign was shattered at the battle of Cnidus, and the Spartan maritime power, so recently acquired, was destroyed. At this stage, then, Sparta seems to have given up the large plans of empire which Agesilaus had probably formed. A peace was made with Persia called the peace of Antalcidas, which left the great king in possession of all the Greek cities of Asia. But the Spartans were all the more determined to assert their supremacy in Greece itself, and for a time they Theban were able to do so effectively. The successful Supremacy. challenge, however, this time was to come from Thebes. Here the Spartans had established an oligarchical government friendly to themselves. A sudden revolution overthrew the government, and gave the Thebans for their actual leader the heroic Epaminondas. Now, practically single-handed, Thebes challenged the might of Sparta, and the genius of Epaminondas won for her a decisive victory at Leuctra. During the life of that great man, Thebes became definitely the most powerful of the Greek states. The cities and districts which had been subject to Sparta were freed from her yoke, and it was not till after the death of Epaminondas that the Theban ascendency broke down. That great leader fell at the battle of „ Epaminondas. Mantinea. Perhaps there was no one among all the Greeks who inspired on every hand such unqualified admiration alike for his talents and his virtues. He is reputed to have been the first master of the art of war who adopted the