They obtained from the ephors, and from the miso-Theban feelings of Agesilaus, secret orders to Phœbidas, that he should coöperate with them in any party movement which they might find opportunity of executing;[135] and when he halted with his detachment near the gymnasium a little way without the walls, they concerted matters as well with him as among themselves. Leontiades, Hypatês, and Archias, were the chiefs of the party in Thebes favorable to Sparta; a party decidedly in minority, yet still powerful, and at this moment so strengthened by the unbounded ascendency of the Spartan name, that Leontiades himself was one of the polemarchs of the city. Of the anti-Spartan, or predominant sentiment in Thebes,—which included most of the wealthy and active citizens, those who came successively into office as hipparchs or generals of the cavalry,[136]—the leaders were Ismenias and Androkleides. The former, especially, the foremost as well as ablest conductor of the late war against Sparta, was now in office as Polemarch, conjointly with his rival Leontiades. [135] This is the statement of Diodorus (xv, 20), and substantially that of Plutarch (Agesil. c. 24), who intimates that it was the general belief of the time. And it appears to me much more probable than the representation of Xenophon—that the first idea arose when Phœbidas was under the walls of Thebes, and that the Spartan leader was persuaded by Leontiades to act on his own responsibility. The behavior of Agesilaus and of the ephors after the fact is like that of persons who had previously contemplated the possibility of it. But the original suggestion must have come from the Theban faction themselves. [136] Plutarch (De Genio Socratis, c. 5, p. 578 B.) states that most of these generals of cavalry (τῶν ἱππαρχηκότων νομίμως) were afterwards in exile with Pelopidas at Athens. We have little or no information respecting the government of Thebes. It would seem to have been at this moment a liberalized oligarchy. There was a Senate, and two Polemarchs (perhaps the Polemarchs may have been more than two in all, though the words of Xenophon rather lead us to suppose _only_ two)—and there seems also to have been a civil magistrate, chosen by lot (ὁ κυαμιστὸς ἄρχων) and renewed annually, whose office was marked by his constantly having in his possession the sacred spear of state (τὸ ἱερὸν δόρυ) and the city-seal (Plutarch, De Gen. Socr. c. 31. p. 597—B.—C.). At this moment, it must be recollected, there were no such officers as Bœotarchs; since the Lacedæmonians, enforcing the peace of Antalkidas, had put an end to the Bœotian federation.