phant Lacedaemonian
fleet, just twenty-seven years after the war had begun. With them came
the Athenian exiles, some of whom had served with their city's foes. The
ships building in the dock-yards were burned and the arsenals ruined,
there being left to Athens only twelve ships-of-war. And then, amid the
joyful shouts of the conquerors, to the music of flutes played by women
and the sportive movements of dancers crowned with wreaths, the Long
Walls of Athens began to fall.

The conquerors themselves lent a hand to this work at first, but its
completion was left to the Athenians, who with sore hearts and bowed
heads for many days worked at the demolition of what so long had been
their city's strength and pride.

What followed may be briefly told. Athens had, some time before, fallen
under the power of a Committee of Four Hundred, aristocrats who
overthrew the constitution and reigned supreme until the people rose in
their might and brought their despotism to an end. Now a new oligarchy,
called "The Thirty," and mostly composed of the returned exiles, came
into despotic power, and the ancient constitution was once more ignored.

The reign of The Thirty was one of blood, confiscation, and death.
Supported by a Spartan garrison, they tyrannized at their own cruel
will, murdering, confiscating, exiling, until they converted Athens into
a prototype of Paris during the French Revolution.

At length the saturnalia of crime came to an end. Even the enemies of
Athens began to pity her sad state. Those who had been exiled by these
new tyrants returned to Attica, and war between them and The Thirty
began. In the end Sparta withdrew her support from the tyrants, those of
them who had not perished fled, and after nearly a year of terrible
anarchy the democracy of Athens was restored, and peace once more spread
its wings over that frightfully afflicted city.

We may conclude this tale with an episode that took place eleven years
after the Long Walls had fallen. As they had gone down to music, they
rose to music again. In these eleven years despotic Sparta had lost many
of her allies, and the Persians, who had become friends of Athens, now
lent a fleet and supplied money to aid in rebuilding the walls. Some
even of those who had danced for joy when the walls went down now gave
their cheerful aid to raise them up again, so greatly had Spartan
tyranny changed the tide of feeling. The completion of the walls was
celebrated by a splen