Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/474

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

452 HISTORY OF GREECE. Eupolemus, of Argos, continuing as much as possible the a:ih quities and traditions of the former, but with greater splendor and magnitude : Pausanias, the traveller, who describes this temple as a visitor, near six hundred years afterwards, saw near it the remnant of the old temple which had been burned. We hear farther of a war in Arcadia, between the two impor- tant cities of Mantineia and Tegea, each attended by its Arcadian allies, partly free, partly subject. In a battle fought between them at Laodikion, the victory was disputed: each party erected a trophy, each sent spoils to the temple of Delphi. We ehall have occasion soon to speak farther of these Arcadian dissensions. The Boeotians had been no parties to the truce sworn between Sparta and Athens in the preceding month of March ; but they seem to have followed the example of Sparta in abstaining from hostilities de facto : and we may conclude that they acceded to the request of Sparta so far as to allow the transit of Athenian visitors and sacred envoys through Bceotia to the Delphian temple. The only actual incident which we hear of in Boeotia during this interval, is one which illustrates forcibly the harsh and ungenerous ascendency of the Thebans over the inferior Boeotian cities. 1 The Thebans destroyed the walls of Thespiae, and con- demned the city to remain unfortified, on the charge of atticizing tendencies. How far this suspicion was well founded we have no means of judging : but the Thespians, far from being dangerous at this moment, were altogether helpless, having lost the flower of their military force at the battle of Delium, where their sta tion was on the defeated wing. It was this very helplessness^ brought upon them by their services to Thebes against Athens, which now both impelled and enabled the Thebans to enforce the rigorous sentence above mentioned. 2 employ the scries of Olympic prize-runners and Olympiads as a continuous destribution of time, was a practice which had not yet got footing. The catalogue of these priestesses of Here, beginning with mythical and descending to historical names, is illustrated by the inscription belong- ing to the temple of Halikarnassus in Boeckh, Corpus Inscr. No. 2655 : sea Boeckh's Commentary, and Preller, Hellanici Fragmenta, pp. 34, 46.

1 Xenrphon, Memorabil. iii, 5, 6. 2 Thucyd. iv. 1 33.