Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/400

 3g8 HISTOKY OF GREP:CE. SO that Ivassander was now decidedly preponderant throughoul the Hellenic regions. After fixing himself on the throne of Macedonia, he perpetuated his own name by founding, on the isthmus of the peninsula of Pallene and near the site where Potidaja had stood, the new city of Kassandreia; into which he congregated a large number of inhabitants from the neighbor- hood, and especially the remnant of the citizens of Olynthus and Potidoea, — towns taken and destroyed by Philip more than thirty years before.^ He next marched into Peloponnesus with his army againt Alexander son of Polysperchon. Passing through Boeotia, he undertook the task of restoring the city of Thebes, which had been destroyed twenty years previously by Alexander the Great, and had ever since existed only as a mili- tary post on the ancient citadel called Kadmeia. The other Boeotian towns, to whom the old Theban territory had been as- signed, were persuaded or constrained to relinquish it ; and Kassander invited from all parts of Greece the Theban exiles or their descendants. From sympathy with these exiles, and also with the ancient celebrity of the city, many Greeks, even from Italy and Sicily, conti-ibuted to the restoration. The Athenians, now administered by Demetrius Phalereus under Kassander's supremacy, were particularly forward in the work ; the Messe- nians and Megalopolitans, whose ancestors had owed so much to the Theban Epaminondas, lent strenuous aid. Thebes was re- established in the original area which it had occupied before Alexander's siege ; and was held by a Kassandrian garrison in the Kadmeia, destined for the masteiy of Boeotia and Greece.^ After some stay at Thebes, Ivassander advanced toward Peloponnesus. Alexander (son of Polysperchon) having forti- fied the Isthmus, he was forced to embark his troops with his elephants at Megara, and cross over the Saronic Gulf to Epi- daurus. He dispossessed Alexander of Argos, of Messenia, and ' Diodor. xix. 52 ; Pausanias, v. 23, 2. ■■^ Diodor. xix. 52, 54, 78 ; Pausan. ix. 7, 2-5. This seems an explanation of Kassander's proceeding, more probable than that given by Pausanias; who tells us that Kassander hated the memory of Alexander the Great, and wished to undo the consequences of bis acts. That he did so bate Alexander, is however extremely credible : see Plutarch, Alexand. 74