Far from any wish thus to realize the terms of peace which they had themselves imposed, the Lacedæmonians took advantage of an early moment after becoming free from their enemies in Bœotia and Corinth, to strain their authority over their allies beyond its previous limits. Passing in review[87] the conduct of each during the war, they resolved to make an example of the city of Mantinea. Some acts, not of positive hostility, but of equivocal fidelity, were imputed to the Mantineans. They were accused of having been slack in performance of their military obligations, sometimes even to the length of withholding their contingent altogether, under pretence of a season of religious truce; of furnishing corn in time of war to the hostile Argeians; and of plainly manifesting their disaffected feeling towards Sparta,—chagrin at every success which she obtained,—satisfaction, when she chanced to experience a reverse.[88] The Spartan ephors now sent an envoy to Mantinea, denouncing all such past behavior, and peremptorily requiring that the walls of the city should be demolished, as the only security for future penitence and amendment. As compliance was refused, they despatched an army, summoning the allied contingents generally for the purpose of enforcing the sentence. They intrusted the command to king Agesipolis, since Agesilaus excused himself from the duty, on the ground that the Mantineans had rendered material service to his father Archidamus in the dangerous Messenian war which had beset Sparta during the early part of his reign.[89] [87] Xen. Hellen. v, 2, 1-8. Αἰσθόμενοι τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους ἐπισκοποῦντας τοὺς ξυμμάχους, ὁποῖοί τινες ἕκαστοι ἐν τῷ πολέμῳ αὐτοῖς ἐγεγένηντο, etc. [88] Xen. Hellen. v, 2, 2. He had before stated, that the Mantineans had really shown themselves pleased, when the Lacedæmonian Mora was destroyed near Corinth by Iphikrates (iv, 5, 18). [89] Xen. Hellen. v, 2, 3.