This passage is certainly of some weight; yet I think in the present case it is not to be pressed with rigid accuracy as to date. The whole third Book down to these very words, has been occupied entirely with the course of Asiatic affairs. Not a single proceeding of the Lacedæmonians in Peloponnesus, since the amnesty at Athens, has yet been mentioned. The command of Derkyllidas included only the last portion of the Asiatic exploits, and Xenophon has here loosely referred to it as if it comprehended the whole. Sievers moreover compresses the whole Eleian war into one year and a fraction; an interval, shorter, I think, than that which is implied in the statements of Xenophon. The time of the Olympic festival seems to have been now approaching, and the Eleians were probably the more anxious to obtain peace from Sparta, as they feared to be deprived of their privilege as superintendents. The Pisatans,—inhabitants of the district immediately around Olympia,—availed themselves of the Spartan invasion of Elis to petition for restoration of their original privilege, as administrators of the temple of Zeus at Olympia with its great periodical solemnity,—by the dispossession of the Eleians as usurpers of that privilege. But their request met with no success. It was true indeed that such right had belonged to the Pisatans in early days, before the Olympic festival had acquired its actual Pan-hellenic importance and grandeur; and that the Eleians had only appropriated it to themselves after conquering the territory of Pisa. But taking the festival as it then stood, the Pisatans, mere villagers without any considerable city, were incompetent to do justice to it, and would have lowered its dignity in the eyes of all Greece. Accordingly the Lacedæmonians, on this ground, dismissed the claimants, and left the superintendence of the Olympic games still in the hands of the Eleians.[401] [401] Xen. Hellen. iii, 2, 31. This triumphant dictation of terms to Elis, placed the Lacedæmonians in a condition of overruling ascendency throughout Peloponnesus, such as they had never attained before. To complete their victory, they rooted out all the remnants of their ancient enemies the Messenians, some of whom had been planted by the Athenians at Naupaktus, others in the island of Kephallenia. All of this persecuted race were now expelled, in the hour of Lacedæmonian omnipotence, from the neighborhood of Peloponnesus, and forced to take shelter, some in Sicily, others at Kyrênê.[402] We shall in a future chapter have to commemorate the turn of fortune in their favor. [402] Diodor. xiv, 34; Pausan. iv, 26, 2. 2 CHAPTER LXXIII. AGESILAUS KING OF SPARTA.—THE CORINTHIAN WAR.