victorious fleet without delay surrounded Ægina. The Peloponnesians were fully aware of the importance of Ægina to them. Three hundred hoplites came to the relief of the island, and the Corinthians marched across the Geranea into Megaris to the relief of Ægina. It seemed impossible that, while the fleet of the Athenians was fighting in the land of the Nile, and another was lying before Ægina, they should have a third army in readiness for Megara. But the Peloponnesians had no conception of the capabilities of action belonging to the Athenians. True, the whole military levy was absent from the country, and only enough men were left at home for the mere defence of the walls. Yet all were notwithstanding agreed that neither should Ægina be given up nor the new allies be left in the lurch. Myronides advanced to meet the Corinthians with troops composed of those who had passed the age of military service or not yet reached it. In the first fight he held his ground: when the hostile forces returned for the second time, they were routed with tremendous loss. Megara was saved, and the energy of the Athenians had been most splendidly established. {1578} In attestation of it the sepulchral pillars were erected in the Ceramicus, on which were inscribed the names of the Athenian soldiers who had fallen in one and the same year (Ol. lxxx 3; B. C. 458-7) off Cyprus, in Egypt, Phœicia, Halieis, Ægina, and Megara. A fragment of this remarkable historical document is preserved to this day. While thus many years' accumulation of combustible materials had suddenly broken out into a flame of the fiercest war in Central Greece, new complications also arose in the north. The Thebans, who had suffered so deep a humiliation, believed the time to have arrived when the events of the past were forgotten, and when they could attain to new importance and power. In opposition to them the Phocians put forth their strength. … After the dissolution of the Hellenic Confederation, and the calamities which had befallen the Spartans, the Phocians thought they might venture an attack upon the Dorian tetrapolis, in order to extend their frontiers in this direction. … For Sparta it was a point of honor not to desert the primitive communities of the Dorian race. She roused herself to a vigorous effort, and, notwithstanding all her losses and the continuance of the war in Messenia, was able to send 11,500 men of her own troops and those of the confederates across the Isthmus before the Athenians had time to place any obstacles in their way [B. C. 457]. The Phocians were forced to relinquish their conquests. But when the Spartan troops were about to return home across the Isthmus they found the mountain-passes occupied by Athens, and the Gulf of Corinth made equally insecure by the presence of hostile ships.