Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/197

 WRATH OF SPARTA. 175 .No great haste, however, was probably shown in executing this part of the conditions ; for the whole soul and sentiment of the Spartans were absorbed by their quarrel with Thebes. The miso- Theban impulse now drove them on with a fury which overcame all other thoughts ; and which, though doubtless Agesilaus and others considered it at the time as legitimate patriotic resentment for the recent insult, appeared to the philo-Lacoman Xenophon, when he looked back upon it from the subsequent season of Spar- tan humiliation, to be a misguiding inspiration sent by the gods, 1 like that of the Homeric Ate. Now that Thebes stood isolated from Athens and all other allies out of Boeotia, Agesilaus had full confidence of being able to subdue her thoroughly. The same im- pression of the superiority of Spartan force was also entertained both by the Athenians and by other Greeks ; to a great degree even by the Thebans themselves. It was anticipated that the Spartans would break up the city of Thebes into villages (as they had done at Mantinea) or perhaps retaliate upon her the fate which she had inflicted upon Platgea or even decimate her citizens and her property to the profit of the Delphian god, pursuant to the vow that had been taken more than a century before, in consequence of the assistance lent by the Thebans to Xerxes. 2 Few persons out of Boeotia doubted of the success of Sparta. To attack Thebes, however, an army was wanted; and as Sparta, by the peace just sworn, had renounced everything like imperial ascendency over her allies, leaving each of them free to send or withhold assistance as they chose, to raise an army was no easy task ; for the allies, generally speaking, being not at all inflamed with the Spartan antipathy against Thebes, desired only to be left to enjoy their newly-acquired liberty. But it so happened, that at the moment when peace was sworn, the Spartan king Kleom- brotus was actually at the head of an army, of Lacedaemonians and allies, in Phokis, on the north-western frontier of Bceotia. Im- mediately on hearing of the peace, Kleombrotus sent home to ask for instructions as to his future proceedings. By the unanimous voice of the Spartan authorities and assembly, with Agesilaus as 1 Xen. Hellen. vi, 4, 3. J)6r -yap, uf EOIKE, TO 6aLfj.6vi.ov fy-yev, etc. Xen. Hellen. vi, 3, 20 ; Plutarch, Pelopid. c. 20 ; Diodor xv, 51