families in the state; and the Ephors may have apprehended that they would employ their wealth in acquiring partisans and organising revolt among the Helots. We have no facts to enable us to appreciate the situation; but the ungenerous spirit of the regulation, as applied to brave warriors recently come home from a long imprisonment, (justly pointed out by modern historians) would not weigh much with the Ephors under any symptoms of public danger. nians re Skiônê put to death all the adult males. Of the proceedings of the Athenians during this The Athesummer we hear nothing, except that the town of capture Skiônê at length surrendered to them after a longcontinued blockade, and that they put to death the male population of military age-selling the women and children into slavery. The odium of having proposed this cruel resolution two years and a half before, belongs to Kleon; that of executing it, nearly a year after his death, to the leaders who succeeded him, and to his countrymen generally. The reader will however now be sufficiently accustomed to the Greek laws of war, not to be surprised at such treatment against subjects revolted and reconquered. Skiônê and its territory was made over to the Platæan refugees. The native population of Delos, also, who had been removed from that sacred spot during the preceding year, under the impression that they were too impure for the discharge of the sacerdotal functions-were now restored to their island. The subsequent defeat at Amphipolis had created a belief in Athens that this removal had offended the gods-under which impression, confirmed by the Delphian oracle, the Athenians now Political relations in Pelopon nesus change of Ephors at Spartathe new Ephors are hostile to Athens. showed their repentance by restoring the Delian exiles'. They farther lost the towns of Thyssus on the peninsula of Athos, and Mekyberna on the Sithonian Gulf, which were captured by the Chalkidians of Thrace2. Meanwhile the political relations throughout the powerful Grecian states remained all provisional and undetermined. The alliance still subsisted between Sparta and Athens, yet with continual complaints on the part of the latter that the prior treaty remained unfulfilled. The members of the Spartan confederacy were discontented; some had seceded, and others seemed likely to do the same; while Argos, ambitious to supplant Sparta, was trying to put herself at the head of a new confederacy, though as yet with very partial success. Hitherto, however, the authorities of Sparta-King Pleistoanax as well as the Ephors of the year-had been sincerely desirous to maintain the Athenian alliance, so far as it could be done without sacrifice, and without the real employment of force against recusants, of which they had merely talked in order to amuse the Athenians. Moreover, the prodigious advantage which they had gained by recovering the prisoners, doubtless making them very popular at home, would attach them the more firmly to their own measure. But at the close of the summer (seemingly about the end of September or beginning of October, B.C. 421) the year of these Ephors expired, and new Ephors were nominated for the ensuing year. Under 1 Thucyd. v. 32. 2 Thucyd. v. 35-39. I agree with Dr. Thirlwall and Dr. Arnold in preferring the conjecture of Poppo—Xaλkıdîs—in this place. the existing state of things this was an important revolution for out of the five new Ephors, two (Kleobûlus and Xenarês) were decidedly hostile to peace with Athens, and the remaining three apparently indifferent'. And we may here remark, that this fluctuation and instability of public policy, which is often denounced as if it were the peculiar attribute of a democracy, occurs quite as much under the constitutional monarchy of Sparta-the least popular government in Greece, both in principle and detail. Sparta― Boeotian, The new Ephors convened a special congress at Sparta for the settlement of the pending differences, at which, among the rest, Athenian, Boeotian, and Corinthian envoys were all present. But, after Congress at prolonged debates, no approach was made to agree- Athenian, ment; so that the congress was on the point of and Corinbreaking up, when Kleobûlus and Xenarês, together with many of their partisans, originated, in concert with the Boeotian and Corinthian deputies, a series of private underhand manœuvres for the dissolution of the Athenian alliance. This was to the dis thian de puties, present-long debates, but no settlement attained of any one of trigues of the anti Athenian Ephors ⚫ be effected by bringing about a separate alliance points-inbetween Argos and Sparta, which the Spartans sincerely desired, and would grasp at it in preference, (so these Ephors affirmed) even if it cost them the Kleobulus breach of their new tie with Athens. The Boeotians rês. were urged, first to become allies of Argos themselves, and then to bring Argos into alliance with Sparta. But it was farther essential that they should 1 Thucyd. v. 36. * Thucyd. v. 37. ἐπεσταλμένοι ἀπό τε τοῦ Κλεοβούλου καὶ Ξενάρους καὶ ὅσοι φίλοι ἦσαν αὐτοῖς, &c. VOL. VII. Ꭰ and Xena These to bring about underhand an alliance between Argos, through the Bootians-the project fails. give up Panaktum to Sparta, so that it might be tendered to the Athenians in exchange for Pylosfor Sparta could not easily go to war with them while they remained masters of the latter'. Such were the plans which Kleobûlus and Xenarês Ephors try laid with the Corinthian and Boeotian deputies, and which the latter went home prepared to execute. Chance seemed to favour the purpose at once: for Sparta and on their road home, they were accosted by two Argeians, senators in their own city, who expressed an earnest anxiety to bring about alliance between the Boeotians and Argos. The Boeotian deputies, warmly encouraging this idea, urged the Argeians to send envoys to Thebes as solicitors of the alliance; and communicated to the Bootarchs, on their arrival at home, both the plans laid by the Spartan Ephors and the wishes of these Argeians. The Bootarchs also entered heartily into the entire scheme; receiving the Argeian envoys with marked favour, and promising, as soon as they should have obtained the requisite sanction, to send envoys of their own and ask for alliance with Argos. That sanction was to be obtained from "the Four Senates of the Boeotians"-bodies, of the constitution of which nothing is known. But they were usually found so passive and acquiescent, that the Bootarchs, reckoning upon their assent as a matter of course, even without any full exposition of reasons, laid all their plans accordingly. They proposed to these four Senates a resolution in general terms, 1 Thucyd. v. 36. * Thucyd. v. 38. οἰόμενοι τὴν βουλὴν, κἂν μὴ εἴπωσιν, οὐκ ἄλλα ψηφιεῖσθαι ἢ ἃ σφίσι προδιαγνόντες παραινοῦσιν. ταῖς τέσσαρσι βουλαῖς τῶν Βοιωτῶν, αἵπερ ἅπαν τὸ κῦρος ἔχουσι. empowering themselves in the name of the Boeotian federation to exchange oaths of alliance with any Grecian city which might be willing to contract on terms mutually beneficial. Their particular object was (as they stated) to form alliance with the Corinthians, Megarians, and Chalkidians of Thracefor mutual defence, and for war as well as peace with others only by common consent. To this specific object they anticipated no resistance on the part of the Senates, inasmuch as their connection with Corinth had always been intimate, while the position of the four parties named was the sameall being recusants of the recent peace. But the resolution was advisedly couched in the most comprehensive terms, in order that it might authorise them to proceed farther afterwards, and conclude alliance on the part of the Boeotians and Megarians with Argos; that ulterior purpose being however for the present kept back, because alliance with Argos was a novelty which might surprise and alarm the Senates. The manoeuvre, skilfully contrived for entrapping these bodies into an approval of measures which they never contemplated, illustrates the manner in which an oligarchical executive could elude the checks devised to control its proceedings. But the Bootarchs, to their astonishment, found themselves defeated at the outset for the Senates would not even hear of alliance with Corinth-so much did they fear to offend Sparta by any special connection with a city which had revolted from her. Nor did the Bootarchs think it safe to divulge their communications with Kleobûlus and Xenarês, or to acquaint the Senates that |