But the grand and preponderating forces of Hellas now resided, for the first time in our history, without, and not within, Peloponnesus; at Athens and Thebes. Both these cities were in full vigor and efficiency. Athens had a numerous fleet, a flourishing commerce, a considerable body of maritime and insular allies, sending deputies to her synod and contributing to a common fund for the maintenance of the joint security. She was by far the greatest maritime power of Greece. I have recounted in my last preceding volume, how her general Timotheus had acquired for her the important island of Samos, together with Pydna, Methônê, and Potidæa, in the Thermaic Gulf; how he failed (as Iphikrates had failed before him) in more than one attempt upon Amphipolis; how he planted Athenian conquest and settlers in the Thracian Chersonese, which territory, after having been attacked and endangered by the Thracian prince Kotys, was regained by the continued efforts of Athens in the year 358 B. C. Athens had sustained no considerable loss, during the struggles which ended in the pacification after the battle of Mantinea; and her condition appears on the whole to have been better than it had ever been since her disasters at the close of the Peloponnesian war. The power of Thebes also was imposing and formidable. She had indeed lost many of those Peloponnesian allies who formed the overwhelming array of Epaminondas when he first invaded Laconia, under the fresh anti-Spartan impulse immediately succeeding the battle of Leuktra. She retained only Argos, together with Tegea, Megalopolis, and Messênê. The last three added little to her strength, and needed her watchful support; a price which Epaminondas had been perfectly willing to pay for the establishment of a strong frontier against Sparta. But the body of extra Peloponnesian allies grouped round Thebes was still considerable:[411] the Phokians and Lokrians, the Malians, the Herakleots, most of the Thessalians, and most (if not all) of the inhabitants of Eubœa; perhaps also the Akarnanians. The Phokians were indeed reluctant allies, disposed to circumscribe their obligations within the narrowest limits of mutual defence in case of invasion and we shall presently find the relations between the two becoming positively hostile. Besides these allies, the Thebans possessed the valuable position of Oropus, on the north-eastern frontier of Attica; a town which had been wrested from Athens six years before, to the profound mortification of the Athenians.