Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/109

91 POLITICAL CHANGE AT ARGOS. <)1 the political tendencies of that city. There had been within ii always an opposition party, philo-Laconian and anti-democratical and the effect of the defeat of Mantineia had been to strengthei this party as much as it depressed their opponents. The demo- cratical leaders, who, in conjunction with Athens and Alkibiades, had aspired to maintain an ascendency in Peloponnesus hostile and equal, if not superior to Sparta, now found their calculations overthrown and exchanged for the discouraging necessities of self-defence against a victorious enemy. And while these leaders thus lost general influence by so complete a defeat of their foreign policy, the ordinary democratical soldiers of Argos brought back with them from the field of Mantineia, nothing but humiliation and terror of the Lacedaemonian arms. But the chosen Argeian Thousand-regiment returned with very different feelings. Vic- torious over the left wing of their enemies, they had not been seriously obstructed in their retreat even by the Lacedaemonian centre. They had thus reaped positive glory, 1 and doubtless felt contempt for their beaten fellow-citizens. Now it has been already mentioned that these Thousand were men of rich fami- '/ies, and the best military age, set apart by the Argeian democ- racy to receive permanent training at the public expense, just at nfter the Peace of Nikias. So long as Argos was likely to become w continue the imperial state of Peloponnesus, these Thousand wealthy men would probably find their dignity sufficiently con- sulted in upholding her as such, and would thus acquiesce in the iemocratical government. But when the defeat of Mantineia reduced Argos to her own limits, and threw her upon the defensive, there was nothing to counterbalance their natural oligarchical sentiments, so that they became decided opponents of the democratical government in its distress. The oligarchical 1 Aristotle (Politic, v, 4, 9) expressly notices the credit gained by the oli- garchical force of Argos in the battle of Mantineia, as one main cause of the subsequent revolution, notwithstanding that the Argeians generally were beaten : O I yi'u pi/to t ei>6o K i [trjaavr ef iv Mavrcveia, etc. An example of contempt entertained by victorious troops over defeated fellow-countrymen, is mentioned by Xenophon in the Athenian army under Alkibiades and Thrasyllus, in one of the later years of the Peloponnesian viu : sec Xenophon, Hellei. i, 2, 15-17.
 * time when the ambitious views of Argos first began to dawn,