The year 402 is the year of restored democracy. It is called the archonship of Eucleides, who is not our Euclid, but another man of the same name. We hear no more of oligarchy at Athens. Henceforth she is a democracy, as before and more so. Where Athenians had formerly got cheap corn they now got it for nothing. Where they had formerly received a fee of threepence for public duties they now got fourpence-halfpenny. According to Aristotle more than 20,000 persons were in receipt of State payment. However much business the company might transact, the shareholders were determined upon one thing--to pay dividends to one another, with a bonus in exceptional years. It is hard to say where the dividends came from. No doubt there was a good deal of commerce and banking business at the Peiræus, mostly in the hands of half-naturalised foreigners. The rich were bled unmercifully, so that they tended to emigrate or grow poor. And yet in the fourth century Athens was steadily rising in the political scale. A glad day came when her admiral Conon, with Persian help, was able to rebuild her Long Walls. She started a new maritime league, under better safeguards, this time, for the allies. She even recovered something of an empire. She could not afford statues in ivory and gold, but she built her theatre with stone, laid out a stadium, and produced many charming works of art. In short, though her ambitions were curtailed, life was very free and full, and, I believe, very pleasant, in fourth-century Athens. Her statesmen had to be content with smaller schemes; they were a good deal concerned with finance: indeed, it was hard work to make both ends meet. Generals complained that they got no pay; and now that hired troops were in vogue warfare was an expensive pastime. The Athenians were rather more hysterical than before, even more apt to make Byngs of their unsuccessful admirals. They talked more than ever, and did rather less. But on the whole they were well governed, and they played a not unimportant part in the warfare and diplomacy of Greece. The restored democracy was a success. While Athens is recuperating her strength we may turn aside for a moment to watch two other States make their successive attempts to hold the overlordship of Hellas; remembering all the time that the northern horizon is already dark with the storm that is going to sweep the whole of ancient Greece into political insignificance. SPARTA AND THEBES The first episode of Greek international history in the fourth century is a Spartan domination, lasting less than thirty years, but generally considered as one of the imperial experiments of Greece. In addition to her own permanent hegemony over the [Illustration: _Anderson_ FIG. 1. THE MARBLE FAUN, AFTER PRAXITELES _Anderson_ FIG. 2. THE EROS OF CENTOCELLE PLATE LXIII]