It was thus that the Lacedæmonian empire imposed upon each of the subject cities a double oppression;[317] the native decemvirs, and the foreign harmost; each abetting the other, and forming together an aggravated pressure upon the citizens, from which scarce any escape was left. The Thirty at Athens paid the greatest possible court to the harmost Kallibius,[318] and put to death individual Athenians offensive to him, in order to purchase his coöperation in their own violences. The few details which we possess respecting these harmosts (who continued throughout the insular and maritime cities for about ten years, until the battle of Knidus, or as long as the maritime empire of Sparta lasted,—but in various continental dependencies considerably longer, that is, until the defeat of Leuktra in 371 B.C.), are all for the most part discreditable. We have seen in the last chapter the description given by the philo-Laconian Xenophon, of the harsh and treacherous manner in which they acted towards the returning Cyreian soldiers, combined with their corrupt subservience to Pharnabazus. We learn from him that it depended upon the fiat of a Lacedæmonian harmost whether these soldiers should be proclaimed enemies and excluded forever from their native cities; and Kleander, the harmost of Byzantium, who at first threatened them with this treatment, was only induced by the most unlimited submission, combined with very delicate management, to withdraw his menace. The cruel proceeding of Anaxibius and Aristarchus, who went so far as to sell four hundred of these soldiers into slavery, has been recounted a few pages above. Nothing can be more arbitrary or reckless than their proceedings. If they could behave thus towards a body of Greek soldiers full of acquired glory, effective either as friends or as enemies, and having generals capable of prosecuting their collective interests and making their complaints heard,—what protection would a private citizen of any subject city, Byzantium or Perinthus, be likely to enjoy against their oppression? [317] See the speech of the Theban envoys at Athens, about eight years after the surrender of Athens (Xen. Hellen. iii, 5, 13). ... Οὐδὲ γὰρ φυγεῖν ἐξῆν (Plutarch, Lysand. c. 19). [318] Xen. Hellen. ii, 3, 13. τὸν μὲν Καλλίβιον ἐθεράπευον πάσῃ θεραπείᾳ, ὡς πάντα ἐπαινοίῃ, ἃ πράττοιεν, etc. (Plutarch, Lysand. c. 15).