Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/342

 324 HISTORY OF GREECE. topmost success was out of his reach, and that he had already reaped all the glories which they intended for him. We may se that Herodotus, though he refrains from criticizing this story, suspects it to be a fabrication. Not so the Spartan ephors : to them it appeared not less true as a story than triumphant as a defence, insuring to Kleomenes an honorable acquittal. 1 Though this Spartan king lost the opportunity of taking Argos, his victories already gained had inflicted upon her a blow such as she did not recover for a generation, and put her for a time out of all condition to dispute the primacy of Greece with Lacedtemon. I have already mentioned that both in legend and in earliest history, Argos stands forth as the first power in Greece, with legendary claims to headship, and decidedly above Lacedasmon ; who gradually usurps from her, first the reality of superior power, next the recognition of preeminence, and ia now, at the period which we have reached, taking upon herself both the rights and the duties of a presiding state over a body of allies who are bound both to her and to each other. Her title to this honor, however, was never admitted at Argo?, and it is very probable that the war just described grew in some way or other out of the increasing presidential power which circum- stances were tending to throw into her hands. And the complete temporary prostration of Argos was an essential condition to the quiet acquisition of this power by Sparta. Occurring as it did two or three years before the above-recounted adventure of the heralds, it removed the only rival at that time both willing and able to compete with Sparta, a rival who might well have pre- vented any effective union under another chief, though she could no longer have secured any Pan-Hellenic ascendency for herself, a rival who would have seconded .^Egina in her submission to the Persians, and would thus have lamed incurably the defen- distinctly that it was the real story told by Kleomenes, suspects its truth, iind utters as much of skepticism as his pious fear will permit him ; the latter find it in complete harmony, both with their canon of belief and with their religious feeling, KXeo^uev^f Se oi eP,efe, OVTS el t};ev66[ifi>ut VVTE el <iA7?ea 7.eyuv, %u aa^rjveuf final IXe^E <5' uv Taiira 8e Aiyuv, KIOTO, re Kal al/toTO. tdoKte Zn^Tiyryoi ^eyetv, at atrityvyc sro/.Adv roik i'MKOvraf. 1 Compare Fausanias ii, 20, 8.