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18 WORKMEN AND HEROES Coronea (394 B.C.). But either his presence in the Spartan army, or his former action against the King of Persia, whom shifting politics were now bringing over to the Athenian side, caused him to be sentenced to banishment at Athens, and so made his return to his native city impossible. He went, therefore, with his royal patron to Sparta, and sojourned there for some time, even sending for his sons, now growing boys, from Miletus, and submitting them, at Agesilaus's advice, to the famous Spartan education. They grew up fine and warlike young men, so that the death of one of them, Gryllus, in a cavalry skirmish just before the great battle of Mantinea (362 B.C.) caused universal regret. But long before this catastrophe the Spartans gave Xenophon possession of an estate at Skillus, near the famous Olympia, which combined the pleasures of seclusion and of field sports with those of varied society when the stream of visitors assembled for the Olympic games (every four years). He himself tells us that he and his family, in company with their neighbors, had excellent sport of all kinds. He was not only a careful farmer, but so keen at hunting hares that he declares a man at this delightful pursuit "will forget that he ever cared for anything else." He had also built a shrine to his patroness, the goddess Artemis, and the solemn sacrifices at her shrine were the occasion of feasts, whose solemnity only en- hanced their enjoyments. As Mr. Dakyns writes : " The lovely scenery of the place, to this day lovely; the delicious atmosphere; the rare combination of mountain, wood, and stream ; the opportunity for sport ; the horses and the dogs ; the household, the farmstead, and their varying occupations ; the neigh- boring country gentlemen, and the local politics ; the recurring festival at Olympia with its stream of visitors ; the pleasures of hospitable entertainment ; the con- stant sacrifices before the cedar image of Artemis in her temple these things, and above all the serene satisfaction of successful literary labors, combined to form an enviable sum total of sober happiness during many years." There can be no doubt that this was the first great period of his literary activity, though he may have edited, in early youth, his predecessor Thucydides, and com- posed the first two books of his historical continuation entitled " Hellenica." In his retreat at Skillus he composed a series of " Dialogues," in what is termed the Socratic vein ; " Memorials " of his great master, a tract on household " Economy," another on a "Symposium," or feast, one called " Hiero," or on the Greek tyrant, and an account of the " Laconian Polity," which he had so long ad- mired and known. The tract on "Hunting" also speaks the experience at Skillus. The tract " On the Athenian State," preserved among his writings, is not from his hand, but the work of an earlier writer. With the sudden rise of the Theban power, and consequent depression of Sparta, he and other settlers around Skillus were driven out by the Eleans, -and he lost his country-seat, with all its agreeable diversions. But probably the ageing man did not feel the transference of his home to Corinth so keenly as an English gentleman would. He was a thorough Greek, and therefore intensely at- tached to city life, Elis, his adooted country, being the only state which sisted of a country gentry.