Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/30

 g HISTORY OF GREECE, After that battle, the bargain between Sparta and Persia would doubtless have been fulfilled, and the Asiatic Greeks would have passed at once under the dominion of the latter, had not an entirely new train of circumstances arisen out of the very pecu- liar position and designs of Cyrus. That young prince did all in his power to gain the affections of the Greeks, as auxiliaries for his ambitious speculations ; in which speculations both Sparta and the Asiatic Greeks took part, compromising themselves irrevocably against Artaxerxes, and still more against Tissaphernes. Sparta thus became unintentionally the enemy of Perisa, and found her- self compelled to protect the Asiatic Greeks against his hostility, with which they were threatened ; a protection easy for her to confer, not merely from the unbounded empire which she then enjoyed over the Grecian worid, but from the presence of the renowned Cyreian Ten Thousand, and the contempt for Persian military strength which they brought home from their retreat. She thus finds herself in the exercise of a Pan-hellenic protecto- rate or presidency, first through the ministry of Derkyllidas, next of Agesilaus, who even sacrifices at Aulis, takes up the sceptre of Agamemnon, and contemplates large schemes of aggression against the Great King. Here, however, the Persians play against her the same game which she had invoked them to assist in play- ing against Athens. Their fleet, which fifteen years before she had invited for her own purposes, is now brought in against her- self, and with far more effect, since her empire was more odious as well as more oppressive than the Athenian. It is now Athens and her allies who call in Persian aid ; without any direct engage- ment, indeed, to surrender the Asiatic Greeks, for we are told that after the battle of Knidus, Konon incurred the displeasure of the Persians by his supposed plans for reuniting them with Athens, 1 and Athenian aid was still continued to Evagoras, yet, never- theless, indirectly paving the way for that consummation. If Athens and her allies here render themselves culpable of an ab- negation of Pan-hellenic sentiment, we may remark, as before, that they act under the pressure of stronger necessities than could ever be pleaded by Sparta ; and that they might employ on their own behalf, with much greater truth, the excuse of self-preserva tion preferred by king Archidamus. 1 Cornelius Ncpos, Conon. c. 5