Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/218

 [96 HISTORY OF GREECE. with her misrule throughout Eastern Greece, 1 too, Sparta identified herself with the energetic tyranny of Dionysus at Syracuse, as- sisting both to erect and to uphold it ; a contradiction to her former maxims of action which would have astounded the historian He- rodotus. The empire of Sparta thus constituted at the end of 405 B. c., maintained itself in full grandeur for somewhat above ten years, until the naval battle of Knidus, 2 in 394 B. c. That defeat de- Kal evxpt)G-Tov collar LKU$ em Ty iljjTpEi Tov upyvpiov, fj.E'&vdTEpov Qav'kov Tiva teal EKTponiav KOI b^ivrjv KaraKipvuat Kal irapl^ovTaf KOI rovf AaKsdai- TOLVVV lAeye, TOV avrov EKsivai^ rpoirov, EV r6dpa Kal uvimoia-ov Qepeiv, Kal aTTOKTtvvvvai. Plutarch, ascribing the statement to the comic Theopompus, affirms him to be silly (eoiKe hrjpelv) in saying that the Lacedaemonian empire began by being sweet and pleasant, and afterwards was corrupted and turned into bitterness and oppression ; whereas the fact was, that it was bitterness and oppression from the very first. Now if we read the above citation from Theodoras, we shall see that Theopompus did not really put forth that assertion which Plutarch contra- dicts as silly and untrue. What Theopompus stated was, that the first Lacedaemonians, during tht war against Athens, tempted the Greeks with a most delicious draught and programme and proclamation of freedom from the rule of Athens, and that they afterwards poured in the most bitter and repulsive mixtures of hard oppression and tyranny, etc. The sweet draught is asserted to consist not, as Plutarch supposes, in the first taste of the actual Lacedaemonian empire after the war, but in the seductive promises of freedom held out by them to the allies during the war. Plutarch's charge of tome ^ijpelv has thus no foundation. I have written defeuaavrac instead of <5e/leaffoi>raf which stands in Didot's Frag- Jient, because it struck me that this correction was required to construe the passage. 1 Isokrates, Or. iv, (Panegr.) s. 145; Or. viii, (de Pace) s. 122; Diodor. xiv, 10-44; xv, 23. Compare Herodot. v, 92; Thucyd. i, 18; Isolates, Or. iv, (Panegyr.) s. 144. rnaav avruv. qfielf 6e -KEVTE Kal e^rjKovra ovvex&f KariaxofJ-ev TTJV apxijv. I do not hold myself bound to make out the exactness of the chronology of Isok) ates. But here we may remark that his " hardly ten years " is a
 * Isokrates, Panathen. s. 61. STraprtarat fj.ev -yap ETTJ Je/ca //6Af? Inearu-