Note 7 — Chapter LXXVI · FROM THE PEACE OF ANTALKIDAS DOWN TO THE SUBJUGATION OF OLYNTHUS BY SPARTA.

Isokrates, Or. iv, (Panegyr.) s. 211. Καὶ ταύτας ἡμᾶς ἠνάγκασεν (the Persian king) ἐν στήλαις λιθίναις ἀναγράψαντας ἐν τοῖς κοινοῖς τῶν ἱερῶν ἀναθεῖναι, πολὺ κάλλιον τρόπαιον τῶν ἐν ταῖς μάχαις γιγνομένων.

The Oratio Panegyrica of Isokrates (published about 380 B.C., seven years afterwards) from which I here copy, is the best evidence of the feelings with which an intelligent and patriotic Greek looked upon this treaty at the time; when it was yet recent, but when there had been full time to see how the Lacedæmonians carried it out. His other orations, though valuable and instructive, were published later, and represent the feelings of after-time.

Another contemporary, Plato in his Menexenus (c. 17, p. 245 D), stigmatizes severely “the base and unholy act (αἰσχρὸν καὶ ἀνόσιον ἔργον) of surrendering Greeks to the foreigner,” and asserts that the Athenians resolutely refused to sanction it. This is a sufficient mark of his opinion respecting the peace of Antalkidas.