Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/257

TESTIMONY OF XENOPHON. 235 own society and moderate way of life at home, to appointments as hannosts in foreign towns, with all the flattery and all the corrup- tion attending them. Formerly, they were afraid to be seen with gold in their possession ; now, there are some who make even an ostentatious display of it. Formerly, they enforced their (Xene- lasy or) expulsion of strangers, and forbade foreign travel, in order that their citizens might not be filled with relaxed habits of life from contact with foreigners ; but now, those who stand first in point of influence among them, study above all things to be in per petual employment as harmosts abroad. There was a time wh<? j they took pains to be worthy of headship ; but now they strive much rather to get and keep the command, than to be properly qualified for it. Accordingly, the Greeks used hi former days to come and solicit, that the Spartans would act as their leaders against wrong-doers ; but now they are exhorting each other to concert measures for shutting out Sparta from renewed empire. Nor can we wonder that the Spartans have fallen into this dis- credit, when they have manifestly renounced obedience both to the Delphian god, and to the institutions of Lykurgus ! " This criticism (written at some period between 394371 B. c.) from the strenuous eulogist of Sparta is highly instructive. We know from other evidences how badly the Spartan empire worked for the subject cities ; we here learn how badly it worked for the character of the Spartans themselves, and for those internal insti- tutions which even an enemy of Sparta, who detested her foreign policy, still felt constrained to admire. 1 All the vices, here in- sisted upon by Xenophon, arise from various incidents connected with her empire. The moderate, home-keeping, old-fashioned, backward disposition, of which the Corinthians complain,2 but time between their naval defeat at Knidus, and their land-defeat at Leuktra. The former put an end to their maritime empire, the latter excluded them from all possibility of recovering it ; but during the interval between the two, such recovery was by no means impossible. 1 The Athenian envoy at Melos says, Aaicsdaifioviot. yap Trpdf ftev a(j>u( avroi>e K.a.1 TO. emxupia v6fj.tfj.ct, n^eiara apery XP&VTCLI Trpdf <5e roiif aA/lowf iTri^avearara uv lauev TO. ftsv rj6ea /ca/ld vo/j.iovai, ra <5e fiyz^epovra diKaia (Thucyd. v. 105). A judgment almost exactly the same, is pronounced by Polybius (vi, 48). 2 Thucyd. i, 69, 70, 71, 34. apxaLorpOTra v/iuv T& emrri6vfj.aTa uO jraf Kat u ro6j]fj.Tjral Trpbf kvdrifioTuTOVf. also viii, 24