Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/226

 204 HISTORY OF GREECE. Central Greece, which now included Athens as a simple unit, Sparta was the all-pervading imperial power in Greece. 1 Her new empire was organized by the victorious Lysander ; but with so much arrogance, and so much personal ambition to govern all Greece by means of nominees of his own, decemvirs and har- mosts, that he raised numerous rivals and enemies, as well at Sparta itself as elsewhere. The jealousy entertained by king Pau- Banias, the offended feelings of Thebes and Corinth, and the man- ner in which these new phenomena brought about (in spite of the opposition of Lysander) the admission of Athens as a revived democracy into the Lacedaemonian confederacy, has been al- ready related. In the early months of 403 B. c., Lysander was partly at home, partly in Attica, exerting himself to sustain the falling oligarchy of Athens against the increasing force of Thrasybulus and the Athenian exiles in Peirseus. In this purpose he was directly thwarted by the opposing views of king Pausanias, and three out of the five ephors. 2 But though the ephors thus checked Lysan- der hi regard to Athens, they softened the humiliation by sending nim abroad to a fresh command on the Asiatic coast and the Hel- lespont ; a step which had the farther advantage of putting asunder two such marked rivals as he and Pausanias had now become. That which Lysander had tried in vain to do at Athens, he was doubtless better able to do in Asia, where he had neither Pausa- nias nor the ephors along with him. He could lend effective aid to the dekarchies and harmosts in the Asiatic cities, against any internal opposition with which they might be threatened. Bitter were the complaints which reached Sparta, both against him and against his ruling partisans. At length the ephors were prevailed upon to disavow the dekarchies ; and to proclaim that they would not hinder the cities from resuming their former governments at pleasure. 3 But all the crying oppressions set forth in the complaints of the maritime cities would have been insufficient to procure the recall of Lysander from his command in the Hellespont, had not Pharna- bazus joined his remonstrances to the rest. These last representa- tions so strengthened the enemies of Lysander at Sparta, that a 1 Xen. Ilellcn. iii, 1, 3. irdarjf r^f 'EWudog irpovTuTai, etc. Xen. HcUen. ii, 4, 28-30. 3 Xen. Hellen. iii, 4. 2