Note 75 — Chapter LXXXIII · SICILIAN AFFAIRS (continued). — FROM THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CARTHAGINIAN ARMY BY PESTILENCE BEFORE SYRACUSE, DOWN TO THE DEATH OF DIONYSIUS THE ELDER. B. C. 394-367.

See a striking passage in the discourse called Archidamus (Or. vi. s. 111, 112) of Isokrates, in which the Spartans are made to feel keenly their altered position after the defeat of Leuktra: especially the insupportable pain of encountering, when they attended the Olympic festival, slights or disparagement from the spectators, embittered by open taunts from the reëstablished Messenians—instead of the honor and reverence which they had become accustomed to expect.

This may help us to form some estimate of the painful sentiment of Dionysius, when his envoys returned from the Olympic festival of 384 B. C.