Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/169

Rh by a Spartan army, which, on its way home from assisting Doris against the Locrians, took the opportunity of being in Boeotia to make a demonstration against the Attic frontier. But next year an Athenian army entered Boeotia and won a victory over the Boeotians and their allies at Oenophyta, after which Boeotia, Phocis, and Opuntian Locris were compelled to join the Athenian alliance. The victory of the Spartans at Tanagra had led to no important result, but it emphasised the fact that the Spartans considered themselves as at war with the Athenians, and were resolved to withstand the expansion of their supremacy. After the end of the struggle with their helots, who in B.C. 455 capitulated at Mount Ithome on condition of being allowed to leave the country, the Spartans would be at less disadvantage in this controversy. Just about the same time an Athenian fleet and army was destroyed in Egypt. They had been sent five years before to assist the Libyan Inaros to rebel against the Persian king, and their destruction was a blow to the prestige of Athens as champion of Greece against Persia. Still, on the whole, up to B.C. 449 the successes obtained by Athens in prosecuting the policy of Pericles, as well as in other directions, were considerable. In B.C. 456 Athens was still further secured by the long walls which joined the city to the Piraeus and to Phalerum; one of her admirals (Tolmides) sailed round the Peloponnese, burnt Gytheium, the port of Sparta, took Naupactus (where the defeated Messenians were now allowed to settle), and caused the western islands of Zacynthus and Cephallenia to join the Athenian