=226.= PEACE OF ANTALCIDAS. The Spartans now made an effort toward peace by sending Antalcidas to the Persian court. The king accepted their propositions, and furnished means to enforce them. A large fleet, commanded by Antalcidas and Tiribazus, visited the Hellespont, and by cutting off the supplies of corn from the Euxine, threatened Athens with famine. All the states were now ready to listen to terms, and in a congress of deputies Tiri´bazus presented the following propositions: “King Artaxerxes thinks it just that the cities in Asia, and the islands of Clazomenæ and Cyprus should belong to him. He thinks it just to leave all the other Grecian cities, both small and great, independent, except Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, which are to belong to Athens, as of old.” The Thebans at first objected, but being threatened with war by the Spartans, at length took the oath. The terms which thus prostrated Greece at the feet of Persia, were engraven on tablets of stone and set up in every temple.
The second period of Spartan supremacy was signalized by the abolition of free governments throughout Greece. Athens, under the Thirty Tyrants, suffered for eight months a reign of terror. Thrasybulus, with the Athenian exiles, effected the expulsion of the tyrants, the restoration of free government, and a conservative reaction which occasioned, among other results, the execution of Socrates. The Spartans plundered the sacred land of Elis, and expelled or enslaved all the Messenians who remained upon their soil. Agesilaus, succeeding his brother as king of Sparta, became involved in war with Persia. In the contest with Thebes, Lysander was killed, and the king Pausanias disgraced. During the Corinthian War which followed, Sparta was victorious at Corinth and Coronæa, but suffered a disastrous overthrow from the Persian fleet under Conon, in the battle of Cnidus, which resulted in the sudden downfall of her supremacy. The Long Walls of Athens and the fortifications of the Piræus were rebuilt, under the superintendence of Conon. The Peace of Antalcidas gave to the Persian king a controlling voice in Grecian affairs, with the sovereignty of Asiatic Greece, and of the islands of Cyprus and Clazomenæ.