Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/307

 ASCENDENCY OF SPARTA. 285 obliged to send a garrison thither, in order tc prevent it fron? fall- ing into the hands of Athens. They even went so far as to dismiss the Lacedaemonian harmost. 1 In the winter of 409-408 B. c., another disaster had happened at Herakleia, in which the Lacedae- monian harmost was slain. 2 But about 399/B. c., we find Sparta exercising an energetic ascendency at Herakleia, and even making that place a central post for keeping down the people in the neigh- borhood of Mount (Eta and a portion of Thessaly. Herippidas, the Lacedaemonian, was sent thither to repress some factious move- ments, with a force sufficient to enable him to overawe the public assembly, to seize the obnoxious party in the place, and to put them to death, five hundred in number, outside of the gates. 3 Carrying his arms farther against the OEtaeans and Trachinians in the neighborhood, who had been long at variance with the La- conian colonists at Herakleia, he expelled them from their abodes, and forced them to migrate with their wives and children into Thessaly. 4 Hence, the Lacedaemonians were enabled to extend their influence into parts of Thessaly, and to place a harmost with a garrison in Pharsalus, resting upon Herakleia as a basis, which thus became a position of extraordinary importance for their dominion over the northern regions. With the real power of Sparta thus greatly augmented on land, in addition to her vast empire at sea, bringing its ample influx of tribute, and among cities who had not merely long recognized her as leader, but had never recognized any one else, it required an unusual stimulus to raise any formidable hostile combination against her, notwithstanding a large spread of disaffection and antipathy. The stimulus came from Persia, from whose treasures the means had been before furnished to Sparta herself for subduing Athens. The news that a formidable navy was fitting out in Phosnicia, which had prompted the expedition of Agesilaus in the spring of 396 B. c., was doubtless circulated and heard with satis- faction among the Grecian cities unfriendly to Sparta ; and the refusal of Thebes, Corinth, and Athene, to take service under that 1 Thucyd. v, 52. 2 Xen. Hellen. i, 2, 18. 3 Diodor. xiv, 38 ; Polyaen. ii, 21.
 * Diodorus, ut sup.; compare xiv, 81. rot)f Tpa^iviovs evyovraf in Tut
 * i*pi8uv VTTO AaK.s6ai.uovi .)v, etc