At first, her envoys were heard with doubtful favor; the sentiment of the assembly being apparently rather against than for them. “Such language from the Spartans (murmured the assembled citizens) is intelligible enough during their present distress; but so long as they were in good circumstances, we received nothing but ill-usage from them.”[512] Nor was the complaint of the Spartans, that the invasion of Laconia was contrary to the sworn peace guaranteeing universal autonomy, admitted without opposition. Some said that the Lacedæmonians had drawn the invasion upon themselves, by their previous interference with Tegea and in Arcadia; and that the intervention of the Mantineans at Tegea had been justifiable, since Stasippus and the philo-Laconian party in that city had been the first to begin unjust violence. On the other hand, the appeal made by the envoys to the congress of Peloponnesian allies held in 404 B.C., after the surrender of Athens,—when the Theban deputy had proposed that Athens should be totally destroyed, while the Spartans had strenuously protested against so cruel a sentence—made a powerful impression on the assembly, and contributed more than anything else to determine them in favor of the proposition.[513] “As Athens was then, so Sparta is now, on the brink of ruin, from the fiat of the same enemy: Athens was then rescued by Sparta, and shall she now leave the rescue unrequited?” Such was the broad and simple issue which told upon the feelings of the assembled Athenians, disposing them to listen with increasing favor both to the envoys from Corinth and Phlius, and to their own speakers on the same side. [512] Xen. Hellen. vi, 5, 35. Οἱ μέντοι Ἀθηναῖοι οὐ πάνυ ἐδέξαντο, ἀλλὰ θροῦς τις τοιοῦτος διῆλθεν, ὡς νῦν μὲν ταῦτα λέγοιεν· ὅτε δὲ εὖ ἔπραττον, ἐπέκειντο ἡμῖν. [513] Xen. Hellen. vi, 5, 35. Μέγιστον δὲ τῶν λεχθέντων παρὰ Λακεδαιμονίων ἐδόκει εἶναι, etc. To rescue Sparta, indeed, was prudent as well as generous. A counterpoise would thus be maintained against the excessive aggrandizement of Thebes, which at this moment doubtless caused serious alarm and jealousy to the Athenians. And thus, after the first ebullition of resentment against Sparta, naturally suggested by the history of the past, the philo-Spartan view of the situation gradually became more and more predominant in the assembly. Kallistratus[514] the orator spoke eloquently in support of the Lacedæmonians; while the adverse speakers were badly listened to, as pleading in favor of Thebes, whom no one wished to aggrandize farther. A vote, decisive and enthusiastic, was passed for assisting the Spartans with the full force of Athens; under the command of Iphikrates, then residing as a private citizen[515] at Athens, since the peace of the preceding year, which had caused him to be recalled from Korkyra. [514] Demosthenes cont. Neær. p. 1353. Xenokleides, a poet, spoke in opposition to the vote for supporting Sparta (ib.).