Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/307

X small empire. But this empire, if indeed the word can be applied to it, extended only over the south of the peninsula, and it was Messenia alone whose State life was wholly destroyed by it. Over the Peloponnese generally Sparta claimed only a leadership, and this meant no more than the first place in a military alliance of all the cities with the exception of the Achæans in the north, and Argos, Epidaurus, and Trœzen in the east. This alliance, it is true, shows a certain tendency towards centralisation, and we have some evidence that Sparta even interfered in the internal affairs of the cities so far as to put down the tyrannies prevalent at this time. She also put forward claims to a leadership of all Hellas, and tried, though with little success, to meddle with the constitutions of States beyond the Peloponnese, and especially of Athens. But this was under a king of remarkable talent and great energy, Cleomenes I.; and even he failed to secure the adherence of the allies to his schemes for bringing a tyrant back to Athens. The story of this attempt, as told by Herodotus, shows plainly enough how loose the alliance was, and how firmly the idea of independence held its ground even among the Peloponnesian cities.

Besides Sparta there was in Greece at this time