[Sidenote: [398-397 B.C.]] Dercyllidas was already marching for Caria, when information reached him that all his hitherto successful labours for the welfare of the colonies were upon the point of being rendered utterly vain. In these alarming circumstances the interested pusillanimity of Tissaphernes relieved him. Pharnabazus was desirous of engaging; but Tissaphernes already more than half satisfied, since his property in Caria was no longer in immediate danger, would first try the effect of a conference. A herald was therefore sent to the Grecian general. The conference being held accordingly, Dercyllidas insisted on the simple proposition, “that all Grecian cities should be independent.” To this the satraps consented, with the conditions, “that the Grecian army should quit the king’s territory” (by which seems to have been meant Asia, including the Grecian colonies), “and that the Lacedæmonian governors should quit the Grecian towns.” Upon these terms a truce was concluded, to hold till the pleasure of the king and of the Lacedæmonian government could be known. This was the first treaty, reported on any authentic or even probable testimony, by which, since the early times of the Lydian monarchy, it was provided that the Asian Greeks should be completely emancipated from foreign dominion. All the Ionian and Æolian cities, it appears, thus gained immediate enjoyment of independency in peace: the Carian seem to have waited the confirmation of the treaty by the king of Persia and the Lacedæmonian government. But it was a quiet revolution: no great battle gave it splendour; none of those striking events attended which invite the attention of the writer in proportion as they are fitted to impress the fancy of the reader. It forms, nevertheless, a memorable and interesting era in Grecian history; and the fame of Dercyllidas, less brilliant, but far purer, than that of most of the great men of Greece, though, being recorded by the pen of Xenophon, it is indeed secured against perishing, yet deserves to have been more generally and more pointedly noticed, than we find it, by writers whose theme has been Grecian history, or panegyric of the Grecian character. WAR OF LACEDÆMON AND ELIS [Sidenote: [420-399 B.C.]]