Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/191

 CLAIMS OF THEBES. 161) eioners bad recognized the legitimacy of these institutions by a sweeping sentence of death against the transgressors. Moreover at a time when the ascendency of Thebes over the Breotian cities had been greatly impaired by her anti-Hellenic cooperation with the invading Persians, the Spartans themselves had assisted her with all their power to reestablish it, as a countervailing fores against Athens. 1 Epaminondas could show, that the presidency of Thebes over the Breotian cities was the keystone of the fede- ration ; a right not only of immemorial antiquity, but pointedly recognized and strenuously vindicated by the Spartans themselves. He could show farther that it was as old, and as good, as their own right to govern the Laconian townships ; which latter was acquired and held (as one of the best among their own warriors had boast- fully proclaimed) 2 by nothing but Spartan valor and the sharp ness of the Spartan sword. An emphatic speech of this tenor, delivered amidst the deputies assembled at Sparta, and arraigning the Spartans not merely in their supremacy over Greece, but even in their dominion at home, was as it were the shadow cast before, by coming events. It opened a question such as no Greek had ever ventured to raise. It was a novelty startling to all, extravagant probably in the eyes of KaUistratus and the Athenians, but to the Spartans themselves, intolerably poignant and insulting.3 They had already a long uvdpef vptiv oi Trpurot teal xpriiiavi. Kat yevei, f3ov?i6fi.voi Trjf [lev efw Xia tyzdf iravoai, eg 6e ra KOIVU TUV TTUVTUV Botwrwi' iraTpia KaraaTi/aai, kirzKaheaavTo EKovref, etc. Again (c. 66), Kara T& TTUVTUV ftotuT&v iraTpia, etc. Compare ii, 2. 1 Diodor. xi, 81. 2 Thucyd. iv, 126. Brasidas, addressing his soldiers when serving in Macedonia, on the ap- proach of the Illyrians : 'AyaiSoif yap elvat npoafiKEi vfj.lv TU. noXefua, ov did. v[ifi.a%uv irapovatav EKUOTOTE, uTiTiu 6C oi/teiav upeTTjv, Kal fj.rjdev 7r^$of 7re0o/3^j-(?a4 erepuv oi ye fi.r]de UKO Tro2.iTsi.uv TOLOVTUV TJKETE, ev aZf ov Tro/lAot okiyuv up%ovaiv t dA ?M irTieiovuv fiahhov e?Maaov<; OVK a/l/loi rivl KTTjcru.fj.evoi rrjv Sv vaaretav r) TU fiaxofisvoi Kparelv. before the battle of Leuktra, by reading the language which Isokrates puts into the mouth of the Spartan prince Archidamus, five or six years after that battle, protesting that all Spartan patriots ought to perish rather VOL. X. 8
 * One may judge of the revolting effect produced by such a proposition,