[356] Plutarch, Agesil. c. 27. [357] Plutarch. Agesil. c. 28. [358] Thucyd. iii, 61. ἡμῶν (the Thebans) κτισάντων Πλάταιαν ὕστερον τῆς ἄλλης Βοιωτίας καὶ ἄλλα χωρία μετ’ αὐτῆς, ἃ ξυμμίκτους ἀνθρώπους ἐξελάσαντες ἔσχομεν, οὐκ ἠξίουν οὗτοι (the Platæans), ~ὥσπερ ἐτάχθη τὸ πρῶτον~, ἡγεμονεύεσθαι ὑφ’ ἡμῶν, ~ἔξω δὲ τῶν ἄλλων Βοιωτῶν παραβαίνοντες τὰ πάτρια~, ἐπειδὴ προσηναγκάζοντο, προσεχώρησαν πρὸς Ἀθηναίους, etc. Again (c. 65) he says respecting the oligarchical Platæans who admitted the Theban detachment when it came by night to surprise Platæa,—εἰ δὲ ἄνδρες ὑμῶν οἱ πρῶτοι καὶ χρήμασι καὶ γένει, βουλόμενοι τῆς μὲν ἔξω ξυμμαχίας ὑμᾶς παῦσαι, ~ἐς δὲ τὰ κοινὰ τῶν πάντων Βοιωτῶν πάτρια καταστῆσαι~, ἐπεκαλέσαντο ἕκοντες, etc. Again (c. 66), κατὰ τὰ πάντων Βοιωτῶν πάτρια, etc. Compare ii, 2. [359] Diodor. xi, 81. [360] Thucyd. iv, 126. Brasidas, addressing his soldiers when serving in Macedonia, on the approach of the Illyrians:— Ἀγαθοῖς γὰρ εἶναι προσήκει ὑμῖν τὰ πολέμια, οὐ διὰ ξυμμάχων παρουσίαν ἑκάστοτε, ἀλλὰ δι’ οἰκείαν ἀρετὴν, καὶ μηδὲν πλῆθος πεφοβῆσθαι ἑτέρων· οἵ γε μηδὲ ἀπὸ πολιτειῶν τοιούτων ἥκετε, ἐν αἷς οὐ πολλοὶ ὀλίγων ἄρχουσιν, ἀλλὰ πλειόνων μᾶλλον ἐλάσσους· ~οὐκ ἄλλῳ τινὶ κτησάμενοι τὴν δυναστείαν ἢ τῷ μαχόμενοι κρατεῖν~. An emphatic speech of this tenor, delivered amidst the deputies assembled at Sparta, and arraigning the Spartans not merely in their supremacy over Greece, but even in their dominion at home,—was as it were the shadow cast before, by coming events. It opened a question such as no Greek had ever ventured to raise. It was a novelty startling to all,—extravagant probably in the eyes of Kallistratus and the Athenians,—but to the Spartans themselves, intolerably poignant and insulting.[361] They had already a long account of antipathy to clear off with Thebes; their own wrong-doing in seizing the Kadmeia,—their subsequent humiliation in losing it and being unable to recover it,—their recent short-comings and failures, in the last seven years of war against Athens and Thebes jointly. To aggravate this deep-seated train of hostile associations, their pride was now wounded in an unforeseen point, the tenderest of all. Agesilaus, full to overflowing of the national sentiment, which in the mind of a Spartan passed for the first of virtues, was stung to the quick. Had he been an Athenian orator like Kallistratus, his wrath would have found vent in an animated harangue. But a king of Sparta was anxious only to close these offensive discussions with scornful abruptness, thus leaving to the presumptuous Theban no middle ground between humble retraction and acknowledged hostility. Indignantly starting from his seat, he said to Epaminondas,—“Speak plainly,—will you, or will you not, leave to each of the Bœotian cities its separate autonomy?” To which the other replied—“Will _you_ leave each of the Laconian towns autonomous?” Without saying