11. Immediately after the dismission of the Athenians from Ithome, the people of Athens, in order to resent the affront, annulled the alliance with Sparta, which had subsisted since the Persian war;(834) entered into a treaty with Argos, the enemy of Sparta, and also with the Thessalians; and even joined to itself Megara, which was dependent on its commercial intercourse. Then followed the war with the maritime towns of Argolis, in which Athens, after many reverses, at length succeeded in destroying the fleet of Ægina, and subjugating that island (457 B.C.).(835) Sparta was compelled to be a quiet spectator of the subjection of so important a member of her confederacy, as she was still occupied with the siege of Ithome, and in the same year had sent out an army to liberate her mother country, Doris, from the yoke of the Phocians. But when, after the execution of this object, the Spartans were hastening back to Peloponnesus, they were compelled to force their passage home by the battle of Tanagra, which, with the assistance of the Thebans, they gained over an army composed of Athenians, Ionians, Argives, and Thessalians. This aid was afforded to them on the condition that they would help the Thebans to regain their supremacy in Bœotia, which the Thebans had lost by their defection from the Grecian cause in the Persian war.(836) Sparta, however, after so decisive a victory, concluded a four months’ armistice with Athens, during which that state conquered the Thebans at Œnophyta, finished the blockade of Ægina, subdued all Bœotia with the exception of Thebes, and Phocis, and extended its democratical constitution, which after the battle of Tanagra was nearly threatened with destruction,(837) even to the city of Thebes. The inactivity of Sparta during these astonishing successes of her enemy (for when she concluded the armistice with Athens she must have partly foreseen its consequences) seems to prove that she was entirely occupied with the final capture of Ithome, and the settlement of her interests in Arcadia.(838) But that the war, which was now renewed by Athens, nevertheless extended to the whole Peloponnesian league, is shown by the connected attacks of Tolmides on the Spartan harbour Gytheium, and the cities of Sicyon and Corinth, and also by the expedition of Pericles in the Corinthian gulf. The five years’ truce in 451 B.C. was only an armistice between Athens and the Peloponnesian confederacy, which left Bœotia to shake off the Athenian yoke by its own exertions. This was also the time of the Sacred war, in which a Spartan and an Athenian army, one coming after the other, the first gave the management of the temple to the Delphians, and the second, against all ancient right,(839) to the Phocians. At the end of these five years Megara revolted from the Athenians, and in consequence an invasion of Attica by the Peloponnesians took place, which, though it did not produce any immediate result, was soon followed by the thirty years’ truce, in which Athens ceded her conquests in Megaris and Peloponnesus,(840) and on the mainland returned within her ancient boundaries; but she preserved the same power over her other confederates. For when the Athenians soon afterwards attacked the revolted island of Samos, the Peloponnesians indeed debated whether they should protect it, but the proposal of Corinth was adopted, that Athens should be allowed to deal with her allies as she pleased.(841)