(M599) This ascendency and rapid growth in wealth and power were beheld with jealous eyes, not only by Sparta, but other States which she controlled, or with which she was in alliance. The consequence was, the Peloponnesian war, which lasted half a generation, and which, after various vicissitudes and fortunes, terminated auspiciously for Sparta, but disastrously to Greece as a united nation. The Persian wars bound all the States together by a powerful Hellenic sentiment of patriotism. The Peloponnesian war dissevered this Panhellenic tie. The disaster at Syracuse was fatal to Athenian supremacy, and even independence. But for this Athens might have remained the great power of Greece. The democratic organization of the government gave great vigor and enterprise to all the ambitious projects of Athens. If Alcibiades had lent his vast talents to the building up of his native State, even then the fortunes of Athens might have been different. But he was a traitor, and threw all his energies on the side of Sparta, until it was too late for Athens to recover the prestige she had won. He partially redeemed his honor, but had he been animated by the spirit of Pericles or Nicias, to say nothing of the self-devotion of Miltiades, he might have raised the power of Athens to a height which nothing could have resisted. (M600) Lysander completed the war which Brasidas had so nobly carried on, and took possession of Athens, abolished the democratic constitution, demolished the walls, and set up, as his creatures, a set of tyrants, and also a Spartan governor in Athens. Under Lysander, the Lacedæmonian rule was paramount in Greece. At one time, he had more power than any man in Greece ever enjoyed. He undertook to change the government of the allied cities, and there was scarcely a city in Greece where the Spartans had not the ascendency. In most of the Ionian cities, and in all the cities which had taken the side of Athens, there was a Spartan governor, so that when Xenophon returned with his Ten Thousand to Asia Minor, he found he could do nothing without the consent of the Spartan governors. Moreover, the rule of Sparta was hostile to all democratic governments. She sought to establish oligarchal institutions everywhere. Perhaps this difference between Athens and Sparta respecting government was one great cause of tho Peloponnesian war.