Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/372

 348 HISTORY OF GREECE. incautious and disorderly, when departing from thai place, he was surprised and attacked unawares, near Koroneia, by the united body of exiles and their partisans. No defeat in Grecian history was ever more complete or ruinous. Tolmides himself was slain, together with many of the Athenian hoplites, while a large number of them were taken prisoners. In order to recover these prisoners, who belonged to the best families in the city, the Athe- nians submitted to a convention whereby they agreed to evacuate Boeotia altogether: in all the cities of that country, the exiles were restored, the democratical government overthrown, and Boeotia was transformed from an ally of Athens into her bitter enemy.i Long, indeed, did the fatal issue of this action dwell in the memory of the Athenians,^ and inspire them with an appre- hension of Boeotian superiority in heavy armor on land : but if the hoplites under Tolmides had been all slain on the field, their death would probably have been avenged and Boeotia would not have been lost, — whereas, in the case of living citizens, the Athe- nians deemed no sacrifice too great to redeem them. "We shall discover hereafter in the Lacedasmonians a feeling very similar, respecting their brethren captured at Sphakteria. The calamitous consequences of this defeat came upon Athens in thick and rapid succession. The united exiles, having carried their point in Boeotia, proceeded to expel the philo- Athenian gov- ernment both from Phocis and Lokris, and to carry the flame of revolt into Euboea. To this important island Perikles himself proceeded forthwith, at the head of a powerful force ; but before he had time to complete the reconquest, he was summoned home by news of a still more formidable character. The Megarians had revolted from Athens : by a conspiracy previously planned, a division of hoplites from Corinth, Sikyon, and Epidaurus, was already admitted as garrison into their city : the Athenian sol- diers who kept watch over the Long Walls had been overpowered and slain, except a few who escaped into the fortified port of Nisaea. As if to make the Athenians at once sensible how seriously this ■ — 9— ered as quite dissevered from Boeotia: it remained in connection with Athens as intimately as before. " Xenophon. Memorabil. iii, 5, 4.
 * Thucyd. i, 113; Diodor. xii, 6. Platsea appears to have been consid-