Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/203

GREECE UNDER THE LACEDEMONIAN EMPIRE. CHAPTER LXXII. GREECE UNDER THE LACEDEMONIAN EMPIRE THE three preceding Chapters have bien devoted exclusively to the narrative of the Expedition and Retreat, immortalized by Xenophon, occupying the two years intervening between about April 401 B. c. and June 399 B. c. That event, replete as it is with interest and pregnant with important consequences, stands apart from the general sequence of Grecian affairs, which se- quence I now resume. It will be recollected that as soon as Xenophon with his Ten Thousand warriors descended from the rugged mountains between Armenia and the Euxine to the hospitable shelter of Trapezus, and began to lay their plans for returning to Central Greece, they found themselves within the Lacedaemonian empire, unable to advance a step without consulting Lacedaemonian dictation, and obliged, when they reached the Bosphorus, to endure without redress the harsh and treacherous usage of the Spartan officers, Anaxibius and Aristarchus. Of that empire the first origin has been set forth in my last preceding volume. It began with the decisive victory of JEgos- potami in the Hellespont (September or October 405 B.C.), where the Lacedaemonian Lysander, without the loss of a man, got pos- session of the entire Athenian fleet and a large portion of their crews, with the exception of eight or nine triremes with which the Athenian admiral Konon effected his escape to Euagoras at Cyprus. The whole power of Athens was thus annihilated, and nothing remained for the Lacedaemonians to master except the city itself and Peiraeus ; a consummation certain to happen, and actually brought to pass hi April 404 B. c., when Lysander entered Athens in triumph, dismantled Peiraeus, and demolished a large portion of the Long Walls. With the exception of Athens her- self, whose citizens deferred the moment of subjection by an heroic, though unavailing, struggle against the horrors of famine (