was constituted the interpreter of the treaty; she expounded it by the rule, not of reason, but of might, with the sword in hand, and the power of Persia at her back.[e] This momentous treaty, which is sometimes called the Peace of Antalcidas after its chief Grecian agent, is nowadays more commonly called the King’s Peace, and wisely, since it was the king who chiefly profited by it. Thirlwall, who can always be relied upon to take an impartial view of the question, says of it: “And thus the Peace of Antalcidas, which professed to establish the independence of the Greek states, subjected them more than ever to the will of one. It was not in this respect only that appearances were contrary to the real state of things. The position of Sparta, though seemingly strong, was artificial and precarious; while the majestic attitude in which the Persian king dictated terms to Greece, disguised a profound consciousness, that his throne subsisted only by sufferance, and that its best security was the disunion of the people with whom he assumed so lordly an air.” Niebuhr, to whom the Spartans were almost always hypocrites, has this to say: “Painful as this peace was to the feelings of the Greeks, who were obliged to leave the dominion over their countrymen to barbarians, yet the hypocrisy of the Spartans, who, by this peace, allowed the Persians to interfere in the internal affairs of Greece, was worse.” Grote, whose history is a glowing brief for Athens, the type of democracy, as against Sparta, the type of oligarchy, cannot be expected to approve of an agreement leading to such degradation for the Athenians, as well as for all the Greek world. He says: “The peace or convention, which bears the name of Antalcidas, was an incident of serious and mournful import in Grecian history. Its true character cannot be better described than in a brief remark and reply which we find cited in Plutarch. ‘Alas, for Hellas (observed some one to Agesilaus) when we see our Laconians _medising_!’ ‘Nay (replied the Spartan king), say rather the Medes _laconising_.’ These two propositions do not exclude each other. Both were perfectly true. The convention emanated from a separate partnership between Spartan and Persian interests. It was solicited by the Spartan Antalcidas, and propounded by him to Tiribazus on the express ground that it was exactly calculated to meet the Persian king’s purposes and wishes, as we learn even from the philo-Laconian Xenophon. While Sparta and Persia were both great gainers, no other Grecian state gained anything as the convention was originally framed.”