The History of Greece

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER in. SPARTA AND PERSIA. While Athens was entirely occupied with herself, Sparta stood at the head of the Hellenic world; she was the only state possessing both the will and the power to regulate the condition of the remaining states, and the only representative of Greece as against foreign Powers....
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER in. SPARTA AND PERSIA. While Athens was entirely occupied with herself, Sparta stood at the head of the Hellenic world; she was the only state possessing both the will and the power to regulate the condition of the remaining states, and the only representative of Greece as against foreign Powers. Accordingly, upon the policy of Sparta likewise depended the further course of Greek affairs; and this becomes manifest in the first instance from the position which was assumed towards the man to whom Sparta owed her dominion in Greece, It was soon found out, that this dominion Lyander. was merely an apparent one; for the oligar. worship. chical governments in the several towns paid little regard to the authorities of the city: their eyes were turned to Lysander alone. Whosoever was hostile to him, was a fugitive; whosoever was in command, was a creature of his; and the states where his creatures held sway were dependent upon his will. The longer that Greece had been a scene of general confusion, where opposite tendencies had combated one another in a perpetual oscillation, the more powerful was the effect now exercised by the phenomenon of a man, in whom a single will of a sudden asserted its absolute sway throughout all Hellas. This phenomenon dazzled men, so that even those who were not immediately dependent upon him, did homage to this man of might. Nor was this homage confined to the traditional marks of honor, to golden circlets and such-like gifts; but it now for the firsttime came to pass, that divine honors were transferred to a mortal. At Samos, which had held out against Lysan. der longer than Athens itself, the new government was not ashamed to transform the primitive festival of Here in such a fashion as to address it + the person of Lysan. der. Altars w...