Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/211

 SPARTAN HARMOSTS. 189 individual Athenians offensive to him, in order to purchase Lis co* operation in their own violences. The few details which we possess respecting these harmosts (who continued throughout the insular and maritime cities for about ten years, until the battle of Knidus, or as long as the maritime empire of Sparta lasted, but in various continental dependencies considerably longer, that is, until the defeat of Leuktra in 37 1 B. c.), are all for the most part discreditable. We have seen in. the last chapter the description given by the philo-Laconian Xenophon, of the harsh and treach- erous manner in which they acted towards the returning Cy- reian soldiers, combined with their corrupt subservience to Phar- nabazus. We learn from him that it depended upon the fiat of a Lacedaemonian harmost whether these soldiers should be proclaimed enemies and excluded forever from their native cit- ies ; and Kleander, the harmost of Byzantium, who at first threat- ened them with this treatment, was only induced by the most unlimited submission, combined with very delicate management, to withdraw his menace. The cruel proceeding of Anaxibius and Aristarchus, who went so far as to sell four hundred of these soldiers into slavery, has been recounted a few pages above. Nothing can be more arbitrary or reckless than their proceedings. If they could behave thus towards a body of Greek soldiers full of acquired glory, effective either as friends or as enemies, and hav- ing generals capable of prosecuting their collective interests and making their complaints heard, what protection would a private citizen of any subject city, Byzantium or Perinthus, be likely tc enjoy against their oppression ? The story of Aristodemus, the harmost of Oreus in Euboea, evinces that no justice could be obtained against any of their enor- rbv p>.v KaA/U/? ,ov edepinrevov naari $epa7ra, w? Travra e^aivoirj, a. Trpdr- ~c<ev, etc. (Plutarch, Lysand. c. 15). The Thirty seem to have outdone Lysander himself. A young Athenian of rank, distinguished as a victor in the pankratium, Autolykus, having bceo insulted bv Kallibius, resented it, tripped him up, and threw him down. Lyssvnder, on being appealed to, justified Autolykus, and censured Kallibius,. tolling- him tti/*t he did not know how to govern freemen. The Thirty, bovrever. afterwards put Autolykus to death, as a means of courting Kalli- bius (Jflutarc;;. Lysand. c. 15). Pausanius mentions Eteonikus (not KaUibius) aa Uie -pv.wr. who struck Autolykas ; but he ascribes the same decinon to l*vbu'sar : a, 32, 3).