The successful retreat of the Ten Thousand from Cunaxa, through the length of the Persian dominions (B. C. 401-400), and the account which they brought of the essential hollowness of the power of the Great King, produced an important change among the Greeks in their estimate of the Persian monarchy as an enemy to be feared. Sparta became ashamed of having abandoned the Greek cities of Asia Minor to their old oppressors, as she did after breaking the strength of their protector, Athens, in the Peloponnesian War. When, therefore, the Persians began to lay siege to the coast cities which resisted them, Sparta found spirit enough to interfere (B. C. 399) and sent over a small army, into which the surviving Cyreans were also enlisted. The only immediate result was a truce with the Persian satrap. But, meantime, the Athenian general Conon—he who escaped with a few triremes from Ægospotami and fled to Cyprus—had there established relations with the Persian court at Susa and had acquired a great influence, which he used to bring about the creation of a powerful Persian armament against Sparta, himself in command. The news of this armament, reaching Sparta, provoked the latter to a more vigorous prosecution of the war in Asia Minor. King Agesilaus took the field in Ionia with a strong army and conducted two brilliant campaigns (B. C. 396-395), pointing the way, as it were, to the expedition of Alexander a couple of generations later. The most important victory won was on the Pactolus, not far from Sardis. But, in the midst of his successes, Agesilaus was called home by troubles which arose in Greece. Sparta, by her arrogance and oppressive policy, had already alienated all the Greek states which helped her to break down Athens in the Peloponnesian War. Persian agents, with money, had assisted her enemies to organize a league against her. Thebes and Athens, first, then Argos and Corinth, with several of the lesser states, became confederated in an agreement to overthrow her domination. In an attempt to crush Thebes, the Spartans were badly beaten at Haliartus (B. C. 395), where their famous Lysander, conqueror of Athens, was killed. Their power in central and northern Greece was virtually annihilated, and then followed a struggle with their leagued enemies for the control or the Corinthian isthmus, whence came the name of the Corinthian War. It was this situation of things at home which called back King Agesilaus from his campaigns in Asia Minor. He had scarcely crossed the Hellespont on his return, in July B. C. 394, before all his work in Asia was undone by an overwhelming naval victory achieved at Cnydus by the Athenian Conon, commanding the Persian-Phœnician fleet. With his veteran army, including the old Cyreans, now returning home after seven years of incredible adventures and hardships, he made his way