Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/339

 RESULT TO SPARTA. 317 eiijoyment of uncontrolled ascendency. From this time forward he was the effective leader of Spartan policy, enjoying an influence greater than had ever fallen to the lot of any king before. Hia colleague, Agesipolis, both young and of feeble character, was won over by his judicious and conciliatory behavior, into the most re spectful deference. 1 Three great battles had thus been fought in the space of little more than a month (July and August) those of Corinth, Knidus, and Koroneia ; the first and third on land, the second at sea, as described in my last chapter. In each of the two land-battles the Lacedaemonians had gained a victory ; they remained masters of the field, and were solicited by the enemy to grant the burial-truce. But if we inquire what results these victories had produced, the answer must be that both were totally barren. The position of Sparta in Greece as against her enemies had undergone no im- provement. In the battle of Corinth, her soldiers had indeed man- ifested signal superiority, and acquired much honor. But at the field of Koroneia, the honor of the day was rather on the side of the Thebans, who broke through the most strenuous opposition, and carried their point of joining their allies. And the purpose of Agesilaus (ordered by the ephor Diphridas) to invade Bceotia, completely failed. 2 Instead of advancing, he withdrew from Ko- roneia, and returned to Peloponnesus across the gulf from Delphi ; which he might have done just as well without fighting this mur- derous and hardly contested battle. Even the narrative of Xeno- phon, deeply colored as it is both by his sympathies and his antipathies, indicates to us that the predominant impression carried off by every one from the field of Koroneia was that of the tre- mendous force and obstinacy of the Theban hoplites, a foretaste of what was to come at Leuktra ! If the two land-victories of Sparta were barren of results, the case was far otherwise with her naval defeat at Knidus. That defeat was pregnant with consequences following in rapid succes- sion, and of the most disastrous character. As with Athens at ^Egospotami, the loss of her fleet, serious as that was, served 1 Plutarch, Agesil. c. 17, 20; Xen. Hellen. v, 3, 20. conati sunt Athenicnses et Boeoti," etc. They succeeded in barring his way, and compelling him to retreat.
 * Plutarch, Agesil. c. 17. Cornelius Nepos, Agesil. c. 4. " Obsistere ej