Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/196

 174 HISTORY OF GREECE. on both sides, with diminished power in Sparta, but with increased force, increased confidence, and a new leader whose inestimable worth was even yet but half-known, in Thebes. The Athenians, friendly with both, yet allies of neither, suffered the dispute to be fought out without interfering. How it was settled vill appear in the next chapter. CHAPTER LXXVIII. BATTLE OF LEUKTRA AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. IMMEDIATELY after the congress at Sparta in June 371 B. c., the Athenians and Lacedaemonians both took steps to perform the covenants sworn respectively to each other as well as to the allies generally. The Athenians despatched orders to Jphikrates, who was still at Korkyra or in the Ionian Sea, engaged in incursions against the Lacedaemonian or Peloponnesian coasts, that he should forthwith conduct his fleet home, and that if he had made any captures subsequent to the exchange of oaths at Sparta, they should all be restored ;' so as to prevent the misunderstanding which had occurred fifty-two years before with Brasidas,' 2 in the peninsula of Pallene. The Lacedaemonians on their side sent to withdraw their harmosts and their garrisons from every city still under occupation. Since they had already made such promise once before, at the peace of Antalkidas, but had never per- formed it, commissioners, 3 not Spartans, were now named from the general congress, to enforce the execution cf the agree- ment. 1 Xen. Hellcn. vi, 4, 1. 2 Thucyd. iv. 3 Diodorus, xv, 38. i-fayuyeZf, !cn. Hellen. I. c. Diodorus refers the statements in this chapter to the peace between Ath- ens and Sparta in 374 B. c. I hare already remarked that they belong properly to the peace of 371 B. c. ; as Wesseling suspects in his note.