Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/192

 174 HISTORY OF GREECE. of Kleomenes, she had undone the effect of her previous aid against the Peisistratids, and thus lost that return of gratitude which the Athenians would otherwise have testified. TJndei such impressions, the Spartan authorities took the remarkable Btep of sending for Hippias from his residence at Sigeium to Peloponnesus, and of summoning deputies from all their allies to meet him at Sparta. The convocation thus summoned deserves notice as the com- mencement of a new era in Grecian politics. The previous expedition of Kleomenes against Attica presents to us the first known example of Spartan headship passing from theory into act : that expedition miscarried because the allies, though willing to follow, would not follow blindly, nor be made the instruments of executing purposes repugnant to their feelings. Sparta had now learned the necessity, in order to insure their hearty con- currence, of letting them know what she contemplated, so as to ascertain at least that she had no decided opposition to appre- hend. Here, then, is the third stage in the spontaneous move- ment of Greece towards a systematic conjunction, however imperfect, of its many autonomous units. First we have Spar- tan headship suggested in theory, from a concourse of circum- stances which attract to her the admiration of all Greece, power, unn vailed training, undisturbed antiquity, etc. : next, the theory passes into act, yet rude and shapeless : lastly, the act becomes clothed with formalities, and preceded by discussion and determination. The first convocation of the allies at Sparta, for the purpose of having a common object submitted to their consid- eration, may well be regarded as an important event in Grecian political history. The proceedings at the convocation are no less important, as an indication of the way in which the Greeks of that day felt and acted, and must be borne in mind as a contrast with times hereafter to be described. Hippias having been presented to the assembled allies, the Spartans expressed their sorrow for having dethroned him, their resentment and alarm at the new-born insolence of Athens, 1 already tasted by her immediate neighbors, and menacing to every state represented in the convocation, and their anxiety to 1 Herodot. v, 90, 91.