Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/79

61 DEPRESSED ESTIMATION OK SPAKTA. 61 been persecuted from the beginning by the neighboring tribes, and administered with harshness as well as peculation by its governors. The establishment of the town had been regarded from the beginning by the neighbors, especially the Thessalians, as an invasion of their territory; and their hostilities, always vexatious, had, in the winter succeeding the Olympic festival just described, been carried to a greater point of violence than ever. They had defeated the Herakleots in a ruinous battle, and slain Xenares the Lacedaemonian governor. But though the place was so reduced as to be unable to maintain itself without foreign aid, Sparta was too much embarrassed by Peloponnesian enemies and waverers to be able to succor it ; and the Boeotians, observing her inability, became apprehensive that the interfer- ence of Athens would be invoked. Accordingly they thought it prudent to occupy Herakleia with a body of Boeotian troops, dismissing the Lacedaemonian governor Hegesippidas for alleged misconduct. Nor could the Lacedaemonians prevent this pro- ceeding, though it occasioned them to make indignant remon- strance. 1 CHAPTER LVI. FROM THE FESTIVAL OF OLYMPIAD NINETY DOWN TO THE BATTLE OF MANTINEIA. SHORTLY after the remarkable events of the Olympic festival described in my last chapter, the Argeians and their allies sent a fresh embassy to invite the Corinthians to join them. They thought it a promising opportunity, after the affront just put upon Sparta, to prevail upon the Corinthians to desert her : but Spartan envoys were present also, and though the discussions were much protracted, no new resolution was adopted. An 1 Thucyd. v 51, 52