Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/188

 166 HISTORY OF GREECE. This orator, representing the Athenian diplomacy of the tiiua recognizes distinctly the peace of Antalkidas as the basis upon which Athens was prepared to treat, autonomy to each city, small as well as great ; and in this way, coinciding with the views of the Persian king, he dismisses with indifference the menace that Antalkidas was on his way back from Persia with money to aid the Lacedaemonians in the war. It was not from fear of the Persian treasures (he urged), as the enemies of peace as- serted, that Athens sought peace. 1 Her affairs were now so prosperous, both by sea and land, as to prove that she only did so on consideration of the general evils of prolonged war, and on a prudent abnegation of that rash confidence which was always ready to contend for extreme stakes, 2 like a gamester playing double or quits. The time had come for both Sparta and Athens now to desist from hostilities. The former had the strength on land, the latter was predominant at sea ; so that each could guard the other ; while the reconciliation of the two would produce peace throughout the Hellenic world, since in each separate city, one of the two opposing local parties rested on Athens, the other on Sparta. 3 But it was indispensably necessary that Sparta should renounce that system of aggression (already pointedly denounced by the Athenian, Autokles) on which she had acted since the peace of Antalkidas ; a system, from which she had at last reaped bitter fruits, since her unjust seizure of the Kadmeia had ended by throwing into the arms of the Thebans all those Boeotian cities, whose separate autonomy she had bent her whole policy to ensure. 4 Two points stand out in this remarkable speech, which takes a judicious measure of the actual position of affairs ; first, au- tonomy to every city ; and autonomy in the genuine sense, not construed and enforced by the separate interests of Sparta, as it 1 Xen. Hellen. vi, 3, 12, 13. 2 Xen. Hellen, vi, 3, 16. 3 Xen. Hellen. vi, 3, 14. Kal yap 6rj KOTO, y^v fiev ri uv, i)fj.{Jv i%uv 6v- TUV, inavdc yevoiro f/uuf "kvisriaai ; KUT& tfaAarruv -ye fiqv rif uv v/j.(lf rt, f/fitiv vfj.lv tmTijdeiuv ovruv ; devra EGTIV ore Kal Tro/l/la uvTirvira yiyvofieva- uv jjv Kal i] KaTahijfitietaa Iv QrjBaig Ku.6fj.Eia- vvv vow, (if (?) iaTrovdaaare avrovopovf ruf Trofatf yiy jrir&ai, nuaat rn'ihiv, eirel TjdiK^ijaav ol Qrj/3aloi, krf eKeivoif yeyer?/ t^.
 * Xen. Hellen. vi, 3, 11. Kal vfuv de lyuye bpu 6ia ru. ayvupovus