hip
of Sparta; while her subsequent conduct had given positive offense, and
had excited against herself the same fear of unmeasured imperial ambition
which had before run so powerfully against Athens. She had appropriated to
herself nearly the whole of the Athenian maritime empire, with a tribute
of one thousand talents. But while Sparta had gained so much by the war,
not one of her allies had received the smallest remuneration. Even the
four hundred and seventy talents which Lysander brought home out of the
advances made by Cyrus, together with the booty acquired at Decelea, was
all detained by the Lacedaemonians. Hence there arose among the allies not
only a fear of the grasping dominion, but a hatred of the monopolizing
rapacity of Sparta. This was manifested by the Thebans and Corinthians
when they refused to join Pausanias in his march against Thrasybulus and
the Athenian exiles in Piraeus. But the Lacedaemonians were strong enough to
despise this alienation of the allies, and even to take revenge on such as
incurred their displeasure. Among these were the Elians, whose territory
they invaded, but which they retreated from, on the appearance of an
earthquake."

The following year the Spartans, under King Agis, again invaded the
territory of Elis, enriched by the offerings made to the temple of
Olympeia. Immense booty in slaves, cattle, and provisions was the result
of this invasion, provoked by the refusal of the Elians to furnish aid in
the war against Athens. The Elians were obliged to submit to hard terms of
peace, and all the enemies of Sparta were rooted out of the Peloponnesus.

(M608) Such was the triumphant position of Sparta at the close of the
Peloponnesian war. And a great change had also taken place in her internal
affairs. The people had become enriched by successful war, and gold and
silver were admitted against the old institution of Lycurgus, which
recognized only iron money. The public men were enriched by bribes. The
strictness of the old rule of Spartan discipline was gradually relaxed.

(M609) It was then, shortly after the accession of Agesilaus to the
throne, on the death of Agis, that a dangerous conspiracy broke out in
Sparta itself, headed by Cinadon, a man of strength and courage, who saw
that men of his class were excluded from the honors and distinctions of
the State by the oligarchy--the ephors and the senate. But the rebellion,
though put down by the energy of Agesilaus, still produce