Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/323

 INCREASED IMPORTANCE OF THEBES, 3Q1 Most important were the consequences whuh ensued .^m thu death of Lysander and the retreat of Pausanias out of Boeotia. Fresh hope and spirits were infused into all the enemies of Sparta- An alliance was immediately concluded against her by Thebes, Athens, Corinth, and Argos. Deputies from these four citiea were appointed to meet at Corinth, and to take active measures for inviting the cooperation of fresh allies ; so that the war which had begun as a Boeotian war, now acquired the larger denomina- tion of Corinthian war, under which it lasted until the peace of Antalkidas. The alliance was immediately strengthened by the junction of the Eubceans, the Akarnanians, the Ozolian Lo- krians, Ambrakia and Leukas (both particularly attached to Corinth), and the Chalkidians of Thrace. 1 We now enter upon the period when, for the first time, Thebes begins to step out of the rank of secondary powers, and gradually raises herself into a primary and ascendant city in Grecian politics. Throughout the Peloponnesian war, the Thebans had shown them- selves excellent soldiers, both on horseback and on foot, as auxili- aries to Sparta. But now the city begins to have a policy of its own, and individual citizens of ability become conspicuous. While waiting for Pelopidas and Epaminondas, with whom we shall presently become acquainted, we have at the present moment Is- menias ; a wealthy Theban, a sympathizer with Thrasybulus and the Athenian exiles eight years before, and one of the great organ- izers of the present anti- Spartan movement ; a man, too, honored by his political enemies, 2 when they put him to death fourteen years afterwards, with the title of " a great wicked man," the same combination of epithets which Clarendon applies to Oliver Cromwell. It was Ismenias, who, at the head of a body of Boeotians and Argeians, undertook an expedition to put down the Spartan influ- ence in the regions north of Boeotia. At Pharsalus in Thessaly, the Lacedasmonians had an harmost and garrison; at Pherae, 1 Diodor. xiv, 81, 82 ; Xen. Hellen. iv, 2, 17. 1 Xen. Hellen. v, 2, 36. 'O (5* (Ismenias) uTTtA y-ystro [lev Trpof Travra raCra, &i> fjtsvrci e7m$e ye rb fir} ov neyaf.o-Kpd-yfj.uv re /cat KaKOTrpaypuv elvai. It is difficult to make out anything from the two allusions in Plato, ex- cept that Ismenias was a wealthy and powerful man (Plato, Menon, p. 9C B. ; Rcpubl. i. p. 336 A.).