Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/244

 222 HISTORY OF GREECE. coiidilion to iiay ; but such was the assessment imposed and the scheme laid down by Sparta for her maritime dependencies, enforced too by omnipresent instruments of rapacity and oppression, decemvirs and harmosts, such as Athens had never paralleled. When we add to this great maritime empire the prodigious ascen- dency on land which Sparta had enjoyed before, we shall find a total of material power far superior to that which Athens had enjoyed, even in her day of greatest exaltation, prior to the truce of 445 B. c. This was not all. From the general dulness of character per- vading Spartan citizens, the full resources of the state were hardly ever put forth. Her habitual short-comings at the moment of ac- tion are keenly criticised by her own friends, in contrast with the ardor and forwardness which animated her enemies. But at and after the battle of JEgospotami, the entire management of Spartan foreign affairs was found in the hands of Lysander ; a man not only exempt from the inertia usual in his countrymen, but of the most unwearied activity and grasping ambition, as well for his country as for himself. Under his direction the immense advan- tages which Sparta enjoyed from her new position were at once systematized and turned to the fullest account. Now there was enough in the new ascendency of Sparta, had it been ever so mod- estly handled, to spread apprehension through the Grecian world. But apprehension became redoubled, when it was seen that her ascendency was organized and likely to be worked by her most aggressive leader for the purposes of an insatiable ambition. For- tunately for the Grecian world, indeed, the power of Sparta did not long continue to be thus absolutely wielded by Lysander, whose arrogance and overweening position raised enemies against him at home. Yet the first impressions received by the allies respecting Spartan empire, were derived from his proceedings and his plans of dominion, manifested with ostentatious insolence ; and such im- pressions continued, even after the influence of Lysander himself had been much abated by the counterworking rivalry of Pausanias and others. While Sparta separately had thus gained so much by the close of the war, not one of her allies had received the smallest remu- neration or compensation, except such as might be considered to be involved in the d istruction of a formidable enemy. Even the