Volume 9 — CHAPTER LXXV. FROM THE REBUILDING OF THE LONG WALLS OF ATHENS TO THE PEACE OF ANTALKIDAS. (continued 2)

It was with much delight that Agesilaus pronounced this peremptory sentence, which placed Thebes in so humiliating a dilemma. Antipathy towards the Thebans was one of his strongest sentiments, and he exulted in the hope that they would persist in their refusal so that he would thus be enabled to bring an overwhelming force to crush their isolated city. So eagerly did he thirst for the expected triumph, that immediately on the departure of the Theban deputies, and before their answer could possibly have been obtained, he procured the consent of the ephors, offered the border-sacrifice, and led the Spartan force out as far as Tegea. From that city he not only despatched messengers in all directions to hasten the arrival of the Periœki, but also sent forth the officers called xenâgi to the cities of the Peloponnesian allies, to muster and bring together the respective contingents. But in spite of all injunctions to despatch, his wishes were disappointed. Before he started from Tegea, the Theban deputies returned with the intimation that they were prepared to take the oath for Thebes alone, recognizing the other Bœotian cities as autonomous. Agesilaus and the Spartans were thus obliged to be satisfied with the minor triumph, in itself very serious and considerable, of having degraded Thebes from her federal headship, and isolated her from the Bœotian cities.[737]

The unmeasured and impatient miso-Theban bitterness of Agesilaus, attested here by his friend and panegyrist, deserves especial notice; for it will be found to explain much of the misconduct of Sparta and her officers during the ensuing years.

There yet remained one compliance for Agesilaus to exact. The Argeian auxiliaries were not yet withdrawn from Corinth; and the Corinthian government might probably think that the terms of the peace, leaving their city autonomous, permitted them to retain or dismiss these auxiliaries at their own discretion. But it was not so that Agesilaus construed the peace; and his construction, right or wrong, was backed by the power of enforcement. He sent to inform both Argeians and Corinthians, that if the auxiliaries were not withdrawn, he would march his army forthwith into both territories. No resistance could be offered to his peremptory mandate. The Argeians retired from Corinth; and the vehement philo-Argeian Corinthians,—especially those who had been concerned in the massacre at the festival of the Eukleia,—retired at the same time into voluntary exile, thinking themselves no longer safe in the town. They found a home partly at Argos, partly at Athens,[738] where they were most hospitably received. Those Corinthians who had before been in exile, and who, in concert with the Lacedæmonian garrison at Lechæum and Sikyon, had been engaged in bitter hostility against their countrymen in Corinth,—were immediately readmitted into the city. According to Xenophon, their readmission was pronounced by the spontaneous voice of the Corinthian citizens.[739] But we shall be more correct in affirming, that it was procured by the same intimidating summons from Agesilaus which had extorted the dismissal of the Argeians.[740] The restoration of the exiles from Lechæum on the present occasion was no more voluntary than that of the Athenian exiles had been eighteen years before, at the Peloponnesian war,—or than that of the Phliasian exiles was, two or three years afterwards.[741]