Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/98

 76 HISTORY OF GREECE. strained by the Eleian superintendents without difficulty. Yet the incident, taken in conjunction with the speech of Lysias, helps us to understand the apprehensions and sympathies which agitated Mie Olympic crowd in B. c. 384. This was the first Olympic fes toval after the peace of Antalkidas ; a festival memorable, not only because it again brought thither Athenians, Boeotians, Corinthians, and Argeians, who must have been prevented by the preceding war from coming either in B. c. 388 or in B. c. 392, but also as it exhibited the visitors and Theories from the Asiatic Greeks, for the first time since they had been handed over by Sparta to the Persians, and the like also from those numerous Italians and Sicilian Greeks whom Dionysius had enslaved. All these suffer- ers, especially the Asiatics, would doubtless be full of complaints respecting the hardships of their new lot, and against Sparta as having betrayed them ; complaints, which would call forth genuine sympathy in the Athenians, Thebans, and all others who had sub- mitted reluctantly to the peace of Antalkidas. There was thus a large body of sentiment prepared to respond to the declamations of Lysias. And many a Grecian patriot, who would be ashamed to lay hands on the Syracusan tents or envoys, would yet yield a mournful assent to the orator's remark, that the free Grecian world was on fire 1 at both sides ; that Asiatics, Italians, and Sicil- ians, had already passed into the hands of Artaxerxes and Diony- sius ; and that, if these two formidable enemies should coalesce, the liberties even of central Greece would be in great danger. ' It is easy to see how much such feeling of grief and shame would of the Asiatic Greeks by Persia, and of the Italian and Sicilian Greeks by Dionysius. 3. In 388 B. c. when Athens and so large a portion of the greater cities of Greece were at war with Sparta, and therefore contesting her headship, Lysias would hardly have publicly talked of the Spartans as fj-yepovef rijv 'EMif/vuv, OVK tld/KWf, aol did TT/V efityvrov apeTrjv Kal 6i& TJ/V Trpbf rbv jro^efJLOv k-maTf)fj.riv. This remark is made also by Sievers (Geschich. Griech. bis zur Schlacht von Mantinea, p. 138). Nor would he have de- claimed so ardently against the Persian king, at a time when Athens was still not despairing of Persian aid against Sparta. On these grounds (as well as on others which I shall state when I recoun; the history of Dionysius), it appears to me that this oration of Lys'as ia unsuitable to B. c. 388 but perfectly suitable to 384 B. c. 1 Lysias, Orat. Olymp. Frag, naionivnv rtjv 'EAAada Trepioptiaiv, etc.