Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/181

 THEBES AND PLATJ1A. 159 Iphikrates, or to recommend the conclusion of peace, was obliged to confine himself to the latter alternative, and contributed much to promote the pacific dispositions of his countrymen. 1 Moreover, the Athenians had become more and more alienated from Thebes. The ancient antipathy between these two neighbors had for a time been overlaid by common fear of Sparta. But as soon as Thebes had reestablished her authority in Boeotia, the jealousies of Athens again began to arise. In 374 B. c., she had concluded a peace with the Spartans, without the concurrence of Thebes ; which peace was broken almost as soon as made, by the Spartans themselves, in consequence of the proceedings of Timo- theus at Zakynthus. The Phokians, against whom, as having been active allies of Sparta in her invasions of Breotia, Thebes was now making war, had also been ancient friends of Athens, who sympathized with their sufferings. 2 Moreover, the Thebans on their side probably resented the unpaid and destitute condition in which their seamen had been left by Timotheus at Kalauria, during the expedition for the relief of Korkyra in the preceding year ; 3 an expedition of which Athens alone reaped both the glory and the advantage. Though they remained members of the confederacy, sending deputies to the congress at Athens, the unfriendly spirit on both sides continued on the increase, and was farther exasperated by their violent proceeding against Plataea in the first half of 372 B. c. During the last three or four years, Platasa, like the other towns of Boaotia, had been again brought into the confederacy under Thebes. Reestablished by Sparta after the peace of An- talkidas as a so-called autonomous town, it had been garrisoned by her as a post against Thebes, and was no longer able to maintain a real autonomy after the Spartans had been excluded from Breotia in 376 B. c. While other Boeotian cities were glad to find themselves emancipated from their philo-Laconian oligarchies and rejoined to the federation under Thebes, Plataea, as well as Thespias, submitted to the union only by constraint ; awaiting any favorable opportunity for breaking off, either by means of Sparta or of Athens. Aware probably of the growing coldness 1 Xen. Hellen. vi, 3, 3. Xen. Hellen. vi, 3, 1.
 * Demosthen. cont. Timoth. p. 1188, s. 17.