Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/251

 OF ATHENS. 229 slaves. Many of the other allies seconded the same views, which would have probably commanded a majority, had it not been fcr the resolute opposition of the Lacedaemonians themselves ; wLo declared unequivocally that they would never consent to annihi- late or inslave a city which had rendered such capital service to all Greece at the time of the great common danger from the Per- sians. 1 Lysander farther calculated on so dealing with Athens, as to make her into a dependency, and an instrument of increased power to Sparta, apart from her allies. Peace was accordingly granted on the following conditions : That the Long "Walls and the fortifications of the Peiraeus should be destroyed ; that the Athe- nians should evacuate all their foreign possessions, and confine themselves to their own territory ; that they should surrender all their ships of war ; that they should readmit all their exiles ; that they should become allies of Sparta, following her leadership both by sea and land, and recognizing the same enemies and friends. 2 With this document, written according to Lacedaemonian prac- tice on a sky tale, or roll intended to go round a stick, of which 1 Xcnoph. Ilcllcn. ii, 2, 19; vi, 5, 35-46; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 15. The Thebans, a few years afterwards, when they were soliciting aid from the Athenians against Sparta, disavowed this proposition of their delegate Erianthus, who had been the leader of the Boeotian contingent serving under Lysander at TEgospotami, honored in that character by having his statue erected at Delphi, along with the other allied leaders who took part in tht battle, and along with Lysander and Eteonikus (Pausan. x, 9, 4). It is one of the exaggerations so habitual with Isokrates, to serve a present purpose, when he says that the Thebans were the only parties, among all the Peloponnesian confederates, who gave this harsh anti-Athenian vote (Iso- krates, Oral. Plataic. Or. xiv, sect. 34). Demosthenes says that the Phocians gave their vote, in the same synod, against the Theban proposition (Demosth. de Fals Legat. c. 22, p. 361). It seems from Diodor. xv, 63, and Polyaen. i, 45, 5, as well as from some passages in Xenophon himself, that the motives of the Lacedaemonians, in thus resisting the proposition of the Thebans against Athens, were founded in policy more than in generosity. 1 Xenoph. Ilcllcn. ii, 2, 20; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 14 ; Diodor. xiii, 107 Plutarch gives the express words of the Lacedaemonian decree, some ol which words are very perplexing. The conjecture of G. Hermann, at ^pjjdoiri instead of a, xp% 56vref, has been adopted into the text of .Vlutarch bj Sint J nis, though it seems very uncertain.