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 SPARTAN FOREIGN POLICY. 361 with fresh and plain instructions to accompany Artaphernes. 1 Such was the substance of the despatch, conveying a remarkable testimony as to the march of the Lacedaemonian government in its foreign policy. Had any similar testimony existed respecting Athens, demonstrating that her foreign policy was conducted with half as much unsteadiness and stupidity, ample inferences would have been drawn from it to the discredit of democracy. But there has been no motive generally to discredit Lacedaemo- nian institutions, which included kingship in double measure, two parallel lines of hereditary kings : together with an entire exemption from everything like popular discussion. The ex- treme defects in the foreign management of Sparta, revealed by the despatch of Artaphernes, seem traceable partly to an habitual faithlessness often noted in the Lacedaemonian character, partly to the annual change of ephors, so frequently bringing into power men who strove to undo what had been done by their pre- decessors, and still more to the absence of everything like discussion or canvass of public measures among the citizens We shall find more than one example, in the history about to fol- low, of this disposition on the part of ephors, not merely to change the policy of their predecessors, but even to subvert treaties sworn and concluded by them : and such was the habitual secrecy of Spartan public business, that in doing this they had neither criticism nor discussion to fear. Brasidas, when he started from Sparta on the expedition which will be described in the coming chapter, coulu not trust the assurances of the Lacedaemonian ex- ecutive without binding them by the most solemn oaths. 1 The Athenians sent back Artaphernes in a trireme to Ephesus, and availed themselves of this opportunity for procuring access to the Great King. They sent envoys along with him, with the intention that they should accompany him up to Susa : but on reaching Asia, the news had just arrived that King Artaxerxes 1 Thucyd. iv, 5i). iv cdf tro?i?i&v aXXuv yeypap-fievuv Kfu?*atov fyv, Trpbf AdKetiai/noviovc, GVK el&ivai o, TL ftov'Aovrai TTO^UV yu.p fodovruv ;rpe