Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/78

60 50 HISTORY OF GREECK. lable. He stepped into the midst of the lists, and placed a chaplet on the head of the charioteer, thus advertising himself as the master. This was a flagrant indecorum and known viola- tion of the order of the festival : accordingly, the official attend- ants with their staffs interfered at once in performance of their duty, chastising and driving him back to his place with blows. 1 Hence arose an increased apprehension of armed Lacedaemonian interference. None such took place, however : the Lacedaemo- nians, for the first and last time in their history, offered their Olympic sacrifice at home, and the festival passed off without any interruption. 2 The boldness of the Eleians in putting this affront upon the most powerful state in Greece is so astonishing, that we can hardly be mistaken in supposing their proceeding to have been suggested by Alkibiades and encouraged by the armed aid from the allies. He was at this moment not less ostentatious in humiliating Sparta than in showing off Athens. Of the depressed influence and estimation of Sparta, a farther proof was soon afforded by the fate of her colony, the Tra- chinian Heraklcia, established near Thermopylae, in the third year of the war. That colony though at first comprising a numerous body of settlers, in consequence of the general trust in Lacedaemonian power, and though always under the government of a Lacedaemonian harmost had never prospered. It had Thucyd. v, 50. A/^af 6 'ApKeaiXuov AaKedaiftoviof Iv rti uyuvi iixb TUV uv 7r/.f7ydf eXaftev, on vwuvTOf TOV iavrov ^tv-yovf, not uvaKtjpvx- TOf HoiuTtJv dri/jLoaiov KO.-U TJJV oiiK ijovaiav rjyc ayuviaeaf TrpoeX&uv i( TOV uyiJva uvcdrjae TOV qvioxov, /3ov?i6[ievof dijhuaai OTI iavTov ijv rb apfia. We see by comparison with this incident how much less rough and harsh was the manner of dealing at Athens, and in how much more serious a light blows to the person were considered. At the Athenian festival of the Dio- nysia, if a person committed disorder or obtruded himself into a place not properly belonging to him in the theatre, the archon or his officials were both empowered and required to repress the disorder by turning the person out, and fining him, if necessary. But they were upon no account to strike him. If they did, they were punishable themselves by the dikastery after- wards (Demosth. cont. Meidiam, c. 49). Tengcd themselves upon the Eleians for this insult twelve years afterwards during the plenitude of their power (Xenoph. Hellen. iii, 2, 21 ; Diodor. xir
 * It will be seen, however, that the Lacedaemonians remembered and re-