Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/342

 318 HISTORY OF GEEECE. This dismissal, ungracious in the extreme, and probably ren- dered even more offensive by the habitual roughness of Spartan dealing, excited the strongest exasperation both among the Athe- nian soldiers and the Athenian people, — an exasperation height- ened by circumstances immediately preceding. For the resolu- tion to send auxiliaries into Laconia, when the Lacedaemonians first applied for them, had not been taken without considerable debate at Athens : the party of Perikles and Ephialtes, habitual- ly in opposition to Kimon, and partisans of the forward demo- cratical movement, had strongly discountenanced it, and conjured their countrymen not to assist in renovating and strengthening their most formidable rival. Perhaps the previous engagement of the Lacedsemonians to invade Attica on behalf of the Thasi- ans may have become known to them, though not so formally as to exclude denial ; and even supposing this' engagement to have remained unknown at that time to every one, there were not wanting other grounds to render the policy of refusal plausible. But Kimon, with an earnestness which even the philo-Laconian Kritias afterwards characterized as a sacrifice of the grandeur of Athens to the advantage of Lacedaimon,i employed all his credit and influence in seconding the application. The maintenance of alliance with Sparta on equal footing, — peace among the great powers of Greece, and common war against Persia, — together with the prevention of all farther democratical changes in Athens, — were the leading points of his political creed. As yet, both his personal and political ascendency was predominant over his opponents : as yet, there was no manifest conflict, which had only just begun to show itself in the case of Thasos, between the they invoked the Athenians as well as their other allies : he imiilies that their presence in Laconia was a new and threatening incident : moreover, when he tells us how much the Athenians were incensed by their abrupt and mistrustful dismissal, he could not have omitted to notice, as an aggra- vation of this feeling, that, only two or three j'ears before, they had rescued Lacedaemon from the brink of rain. Let us add, that the supposition of Sparta, the first militaiy power in Greece, and distinguished for her uninter- mitting discipline, being reduced all at once to a condition of such utter helplessness as to owe her safety to foreign intervention, — is highly im probable in itself: inadmissible, except on very good evidence. For the reasons here stated. I reject the first expedition into Laconia mentioned in Plutarch. ' Plutarch, Kimon, c. 16