Of the history of the Isthmia in the fifth and fourth centuries we know practically nothing. The records of victories in the games are too scanty to enable us to form any trustworthy conclusions;[343] as far as they go they indicate that the athletic competition was far more local than at Olympia. There are hardly any names of victors recorded from Sicily and Italy which figure so largely in the Olympic records. With the exception of a few periodonikai the competitors come chiefly from Corinth, Aegina, Thebes, and Athens, and some of the islands of the Aegean. Bacchylides in his Second Ode on Argeius of Ceos mentions that at this date the Ceans had already won seventy victories at the Isthmus, and a Cean inscription, now at Athens, records numerous victories which they had won at the Isthmia and the Nemea, including victories of Argeius.[344] The Oligaethidae of Corinth had, according to Pindar, themselves won sixty crowns at these two festivals, and the Timodemidae of Athens had won eight victories at the Isthmus and seven at the Nemea. We can find no such records as these at Olympia.[345] During the Peloponnesian war the festival must have suffered greatly from the enforced absence of the Athenians. In the _Peace_ of Aristophanes, written shortly after the peace of Nicias, one of the slaves expresses his delight at the prospect of once more taking part in the Isthmia.[346] The Corinthians had probably equal cause for rejoicing; without the Athenians and their allies the festival must have been shorn of half its splendour. A few years later, in 412 B.C., we find the Corinthians insisting vigorously on the observance of the Isthmian truce, and turning a deaf ear to the suggestions of Sparta for a joint expedition to free Chios from the Athenian yoke.[347] They even invited the Athenians to the festival, and thus enabled them to discover the plot of the Chians, and to destroy the fleet which sailed for Chios at the conclusion of the festival. The policy of Corinth was to preserve the balance of power. Her bitter opposition to Athens was the natural result of commercial rivalry, but the supremacy of Sparta was still less to her liking, and within a few years of the humiliation of Athens we find her leagued with Athens, Thebes, and Argos in an anti-Spartan league. The Spartans had no scruples as to the observance of festivals, except when it suited their convenience; and Agesilaus, with certain Corinthian exiles of the Spartan party, actually invaded Corinth during the progress of the Isthmia.[348] The games were being conducted by the Corinthians and Argives, who seem to have been for a time united into one state. On the approach of Agesilaus they took to flight, and Agesilaus himself encamped in the sacred precinct, while the Corinthian exiles offered the customary sacrifice to Poseidon and conducted the games. When Agesilaus withdrew, the Argives returned and celebrated the festival all over again.