Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/186

 164 HISTORY OF GREECE. confederacy ; and they even seem to have contended, that they had rendered a positive service to the general Athenian confed- eracy of which they were members, 1 by expelling the inhabitants of Plataea and dismantling Thespian ; both towns being not merely devoted to Sparta, but also adjoining Kithaeron, the frontier line whereby a Spartan army would invade Boeotia. Both in the pub- lic assembly of Athens, and in the general congress of the con- federates at that city, animated discussions were raised upon the whole subject ; 2 discussions, wherein, as it appears, Epaminon- das, as the orator and representative of Thebes, was found a com- petent advocate against Kallistratus, the most distinguished speaker in Athens ; sustaining the Theban cause with an ability which greatly enhanced his growing reputation. 3 But though the Thebans and their Athenian supporters, having all the prudential arguments on their side, earned the point so that no step was taken to restore the Plataeans, nor any hostile declaration made against those to whom they owed their expulsion, yet the general result of the debates, animated by keen sym- pathy with the Plataean sufferers, tended decidedly to poison the good feeling, and loosen the ties, between Athens and Thebes. This change showed itself by an increased gravitation towards peace with Sparta ; strongly advocated by the orator Kallistratus, and now promoted not merely by the announced Persian inter- 1 Isokrat. Or. xiv, (Plat.) s. 23-27. Zeyouow <!)<; inrep TOV KOIVOV rtiv cvfi- fj.u%uv Tavr' crrpagav aal rb Qrjpaiovt; e%eiv TTJV fj/j.eTepav, TOVTO avfj.epov elvai rol<; av/n[ia%oie, etc. 8 Isokrat. Or. 14, (Plat.) s. 23, 24. 3 Diodorus, (xv, 38) mentions the parliamentary conflict between Epami- nondas and Kallistratus, assigning it to the period immediately antecedent to the abortive peace concluded between Athens and Sparta three years before. I agree with "Wesseling (see his note ad loc.) in thinking that these debates more properly belong to the time immediately preceding the peace of 371 B. c. Diodorus has made great confusion between the two ; some- times repeating twice over the same antecedent phenomena, as if they be- longed to both, sometimes assigning to one what properly belongs to tho other. The altercation between Epaminondas and Kallistratus (kv -<i KOIV& owe- fyj'u) seems to me more properly appertaining to debates in the assembly of the confederacy at Athens, rather than to debates at Sparta, in the preliminary discussions for peace; where tho altercations between Epami- nondas and Ayesilaus occurred.