The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 04 : $b Greece to the Roman Conquest
History
The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 04 : $b Greece to the Roman Conquest
World history
Most of the principal officers, and many inferior men, of the numerous
Asiatic troops under Agesilaus, would be deeply interested in this
revolution. The principal sources of pay for all would cease; and hence
the plain of Coronea seems to have been the last field of fame for the
Cyreans. We find no mention of them afterwards from Xenophon: apparent
proof that their following fortunes were not brilliant; not such as he
could have any satisfaction in reporting. Probably they dispersed, some
to their homes, some to seek new service, and never more assembled.[b]
LAND AFFAIRS OF THE CORINTHIAN WAR
[Sidenote: [394-392 B.C.]]
Xenophon was no such student of the accurate arrangement of events as was
Thucydides, and the history recounted hereafter is differently ordered
by different historians; by some the massacre at Corinth is postponed
two years, to 392 B.C. The massacre which Xenophon with his Spartan
sympathies makes so cold-blooded a butchery is by sober historians
credited merely to the government’s anticipation of a similar step on the
part of the opposition.[a]
Corinth still continued to be the theatre of war. A Lacedæmonian
garrison occupied Sicyon, and made frequent inroads into the Corinthian
territory. The allies of Corinth were well pleased to see themselves
thus exempt from the calamities of war at her expense. But the party
among the Corinthians which, on political grounds, desired to renew
their connection with Sparta, derived new motives from this state of
things to encourage them in their designs; and they began to hold private
meetings to concert measures for restoring peace. Their movements were
observed by their adversaries, who determined to counteract them by one
of those atrocious massacres which so frequently disfigure the pages of
Greek history. We do not know what credit may be due to Xenophon, when
he intimates that all the principal allies of Corinth,--the Argives,
and Bœotians, and Athenians,--had an equal share in the conspiracy,
or whether he is only speaking of the foreign garrison. His horror is
chiefly excited by the impiety of the murderers, who selected a holiday
for the deed, that they might be the more likely to find their enemies
out of doors, and in the execution of their purpose paid no regard to the
most sacred things and places, but stained even the altars and images of
the gods with the blood of their victims.
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