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 194 HISTORY OF GREECE. unwilling parties, except with a view to some common good. But as we seek not empire for ourselves, as we struggle only to put down the empire of others, as we offer autonomy to each and all, so we should do wrong to the majority if we allowed you to persist hi your opposition." l Like the allied sovereigns of Europe in 1813, who, requiring the most strenuous efforts on the part of the people to contend against the Emperor Napoleon, promised free constitutions and granted nothing after the victory had been assured, the Lace- daemonians thus held out the most emphatic and repeated assur- ances of general autonomy in order to enlist allies against Athens ; disavowing, even ostentatiously, any aim at empire for themselves. It is true, that after the great catastrophe before Syracuse, when the rum of Athens appeared imminent, and when the alliance with the Persian satraps against her was first brought to pass, the Lacedaemonians began to think more of empire, 2 and less of Grecian freedom ; "which, indeed, so far as concerned the Greeks on the continent of Asia, was surrendered to Persia. Neverthe- less the old watchword still continued. It was still currently believed, though less studiously professed, that the destruction of the Athenian empire was aimed at as a means to the liberation of Greece. 3 The victory of .^Egospotami with its consequences cruelly unde- ceived every one. The language of Brasidas, sanctioned by the solemn oaths of the Lacedaemonian ephors, in 424 B. c. and the proceedings of the Lacedaemonian Lysander hi 405-404 B. c., the commencing hour of Spartan omnipotence, stand in such literal and flagrant contradiction, that we might almost imagine the former to have foreseen the possibility of such a successor, and to have tried to disgrace and disarm him beforehand. The dekarchies of Ly- Thucyd. iv, 87. Ot> Je (xpeiTiOfiev ol AaKetiaipovioi fty KOCVOV r ivof airta rove pi) ftovhofievovf khev&epovv. Oi<5' aw Qiefiefi a, iravaai 6e fj.fM.ov repov oireiitiovTEf roijf TrAaovf uv a6iKolfj.ev, si t;v[iicaoiv avrovofiiav iirifepovref iftuf roi>( kvav- Tiovfievov^ ireptdoiftev. Compare Isokratcs, Or. iy, (Panegyr.) s. 140, 141. 8 Feelings of the Lacedaemonians dtring the winter immediately succeed- ing the great Syracusan catastrophe (Thuc. riii, 2) nai K vovf (the Athenians) aurol T^Q Trdprif 'EA/taA>f fjSi] da^a/lwf f Compare Thucyd. viii, 43, .3 ; viii. 46, 3.