Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/70

 44 HISTORY OP GREECfc. are told) Dionysius wished to cut off the connection between Lokri and the other Greeks in the Tarentine Gulf. These latter are said to have interposed from without, and prevented the exe- cution of the scheme; but its natural difficulties would be in themselves no small impediment, nor are we sure that the wall was even begun. 1 During this interval, momentous events (recounted in my pie- vious chapters) had occurred in Central Greece. In 382 B. c., the Spartans made themselves by fraud masters of Thebes, and placed a permanent garrison in the Kadmeia. In 380 B. c., they put down the Olynthian confederacy, thus attaining the maximum of their power. But in 379 B. c., there occurred the revolution at Thebes achieved by the conspiracy of Pelopidas, who expelled the Lacedasmonians from the Kadmeia. Involved in a burden- some war against Thebes and Athens, together with other allies the Lacedaemonians gradually lost ground, and had become much reduced before the peace of 371 B. c., which left them to contend with Thebes alone. Then came the fatal battle of Leuktra which prostrated their military ascendency altogether. These incidents have been already related at large in former chapters. Two years before the battle of Leuktra, Dionysius sent to the aid of the Lacedaemonians at Korkyra a squadron of ten ships, all of which were captured by Iphikrates ; about three years after the battle, when the Thebans and their allies were pressing Sparta in Pelo- ponnesus, he twice sent thither a military force of Gauls and Ibe- rians to reinforce her army. But his troops neither stayed long, nor rendered any very conspicuous service. 2 In this year we hear of a fresh attack by Dionysius against the Carthaginians. Observing that they had been lately much en- feebled by pestilence and by mutiny of their African subjects, ho thought the opportunity favorable for trying to recover what the peace of 383 B. c., had obliged him to relinquish. A false pre- tence being readily found, he invaded the Carthaginian posses- sions in the west of Sicily with a large land force of thirty thou* 1 Strabo, vi. p. 261 ; Pliny, H. N. iii. 10. The latter calls the isthnuu twenty miles broad, and says that Dionysius wished (intercisam) to cut it through: Strabo says that he proposel to wall it across which is more probable. 8 Xenaph. Hellen, vi. 2, 4, 33 ; vii i. 20-28. T>'odor. xv. 70