Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/350

 328 HISTORY OF GEEECI. Argos, ha ing as yet suffered nothing. Constant military service for defence, with the conversion of the city into a sort of besieged post, aggravated their discomfort. There was another circum- stance also, doubtless not without influence. The consequences of the battle of Knidus had been, first, to put down the maritime empire of Sparta, and thus to dimmish the fear which she inspired to the Corinthians ; next, to rebuild the fortifications, and renovate the shipping, commercial as well as warlike, of Athens ; a revi- val well calculated to bring back a portion of that anti-Athenian jealousy and apprehension which the Corinthians had felt so strongly a few years before. Perhaps some of the trade at Co- rinth may have been actually driven away by the disturbance of the war, to the renewed fortifications and greater security of Pei- raeus. Fostered by this pressure of circumstances, the discontented philo-Laconian or peace-party which had always existed at Co- rinth, presently acquired sufficient strength, and manifested itself with sufficient publicity to give much alarm to the government. The Corinthian government had always been, and still was, oli- garchical. In what manner the administrators or the council were renovated, or how long individuals continued in office, indeed, we do not know. But of democracy, with its legal, popular assem- blies, open discussions and authoritative resolves, there was quired the command of the Gulf, which, however, they did not retain for more than a year, if so much. Hence, it is not likely that any strong dis- content against the war began before the early part of 392 B. c. Considering all these circumstances, I think it reasonable to believe that the coup d'etat and massacre at Corinth took place (not in 393 B. c., as Mr. Clinton and M. Rehdantz place it, but) in 392 B. c. ; and the battle within the Long Walls rather later in the same year. Next, the opinion of the same two authors, as well as of Dodwell, that the destruction of the Lacedaemonian mora by Iphicrates took place in the spring of 392 B. c., is also, in my view, erroneous. If this were true, it would be necessary to pack all the events mentioned in Xenophon, iv, 4, into the year 393 B. c. ; which I hold to be impossible. If the destruction of the mora did not occur in the spring of 393 B. c., we know that it could not have occurred until the spring of 390 B. c. ; that is, the next ensuing Isthmian games, two years afterwards. And this last will be found to b its true date; thus leaving full time, but not too much tirje, for the antece dent occurrences.