Shortly after this the storm which the Athenians had foreseen broke upon them. ◆H. v. 74.◆ Kleomenes collected a formidable army from Peloponnesus and invaded Attica, while the Bœotians and the Chalkidians of Eubœa prepared to attack from the north. The main danger was averted by the disruption of Kleomenes’ army. The defection not merely of the Corinthians, but also of Demaratos, Kleomenes’ partner in the dual kingship of Sparta, brought the expedition to a premature close after it had actually entered upon Attic territory. This was disastrous for the northern allies. The Bœotians and the Chalkidians were both defeated. In the case of the latter the disaster was irreparable. Their great city, foremost in early Greek trade and colonization, lost its independence, and its lands were occupied by Athenian settlers. Athens had acquired one of the great strategic positions of Greece; and Corinth had made the first of those fatal mistakes of policy which were to have such momentous consequences in the next century. The Bœotians did not accept defeat. Left in the lurch by their Peloponnesian allies, ◆H. v. 89.◆ they sought and obtained aid from Ægina, which great trading state seized the opportunity of inflicting damage on an old enemy and growing rival in commerce, and harried the Attic coast with piratical raids. Meanwhile events were preparing for a second interference of Persia in Athenian affairs. ◆H. v. 90.◆ The Lacedæmonians had discovered the fact that they had been tricked by the Delphic Oracle, which, bribed by the Alkmæonidæ, had urged them to aid in the expulsion of Hippias from Athens. Seeking to amend this mistake, they recalled Hippias from Sigeon in the Troad, to which principality he had retired after his expulsion, and where he must have been living for some years as a vassal prince of Persia. Their intention was to reinstate him in the tyranny at Athens. It was again the Corinthians who wrecked the plan. At a conference of the Peloponnesian League called to consider the question, they bitterly opposed the proposal, and carried the other allies with them. Hippias, having had his journey for nothing, returned to Asia more than ever embittered in feeling against Athens and Greece alike; and he seems to have moved heaven and earth to induce Artaphernes to reinstate him in his tyranny. In the end he prevailed so far that Artaphernes called upon the Athenians to receive him back. Whether he intended to take action in case of their refusal will never be known, but events were imminent in Asia, even if they had not already occurred, which rendered all idea of his active interference out of the question; for, if Herodotus’ chronology be correct, this demand was made by him either immediately before or after the first actual step had been taken in the great revolt. ◆H. v. 96, 97.◆ The demand, says Herodotus, convinced the Athenians that thereafter there could only be open enmity with Persia; and while they were in this mind