Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/300

 27$ HISTORY OF GREECE. plain that this is not a correct account. Pausanias did not create the discord, but found it already existing, and had to choose which of the parties he would adopt. The Ten took up the oligarchical game after it had been thoroughly dishonored and ruined by the Thirty : they inspired no confidence, nor had they any hold upon the citizens in Athens, except in so far as these latter dreaded reactionary violence, in case Thrasybulus and his companions should reenter by force ; accordingly, when Pau- sanias was there at the head of a force competent to prevent such dangerous reaction, the citizens at once manifested their disposi- tions against the Ten, and favorable to peace with Peirseus. To second this pacific party was at once the easiest course for Pau- sanias to take, and the most likely to popularize Sparta in Greece ; whereas, he would surely have entailed upon her still more bitter curses from without, not to mention the loss of men to herself, if he had employed the amount of force requisite to uphold the Ten, and subdue Peiraeus. To all this we have to add his jealousy of Lysander, as an important predisposing motive, but only as auxiliary among many others. Under such a state of facts, it is not surprising to learn that Pausanias encouraged solicitations for peace from Thrasybulus and the exiles, and that he granted them a truce to enable them to send envoys to Sparta. Along with these envoys went Kephi- sophon and Melitus, sent for the same purpose of entreating peace, by the party opposed to the Ten at Athens, under the sanction both of Pausanias and of the accompanying ephors. On the other hand, the Ten, finding themselves discountenanced by Pausanias, sent envoys of their own to outbid the others. They tendered themselves, their walls, and their city, to be dealt with as the Lace- daemonians chose ; requiring that Thrasybulus, if he pretended to be the friend of Sparta, should make the same unqualified sur- render of Peiraeus and Munychia. All the three sets of envoys were heard before the ephors remaining at Sparta and the Lace- daemonian assembly ; who took the best resolution which the case admitted, to bring to pass an amicable settlement between Athena and Peiraeus, and to leave the terms to be fixed by fifteen com- missioners, who were sent thither forthwith to sit in conjunction with Pausanias. This Board determined, that the exiles in Pei- racus should be readmitted to A'hens, that an accommodation