Now the day of reckoning had come. Spartan ambassadors came to Mantinea, bringing a multitude of complaints, together with the demand for the demolition of the walls about the city. This demand being met by a refusal, Sparta declared war. Agesilaus begged to be excused from the chief command of the army, as the Mantineans had rendered his father great services during the Messenian War. Agesipolis marched against Mantinea and endeavoured to force the people into compliance by devastating their territory. When this expedient proved fruitless he laid siege to the city. The inhabitants made an obstinate defence, but they were obliged to surrender unconditionally after Agesipolis had dammed the river Ophis, which flowed through the town, and thus caused an inundation which brought about the fall of its walls of unbaked brick. By the intercession of Pausanias, who was living in exile at Tegea, the leaders of the people and the partisans of democracy, sixty in number, were allowed to withdraw in safety, a portion of the population was allowed to inhabit Mantinea as an unfortified place, and the remainder was obliged to settle in four distinct unprotected villages. To each of these villages a Spartan xenagos was appointed. Xenophon adds that the Mantineans were at first indignant at being removed, but that they afterwards expressed their satisfaction at what had been done, as under an aristocratic government they could lead a quiet life near their estates and free from troublesome demagogues. This is a reproduction of the Spartan and oligarchic view of the matter. [Illustration: GREEK WEAPONS] In both ancient and modern times the treatment meted out to Mantinea has invariably been branded as an act of most brutal and barbarous violence and arbitrary cruelty, the outcome of the policy of Agesilaus. In this general and (to a certain extent) just censure of the ruler of the Spartan state at the time, one point has been overlooked. In a democratic constitution the Spartans could see nothing but a reign of revolutionary terrorism which oppressed the peaceful and sober part of the community, their own friends and adherents. To help the latter, to put them in power again, they held to be the duty of the sovereign state. Spartan policy was sure of its aims, and in its consistency lies the secret of Sparta’s superiority at this period. And if we are right in assuming that a Spartan must have ceased to be a Spartan before he could conceive otherwise of the state of affairs, there is no justification for heaping personal abuse and scandalous imputations upon a writer who reflects the opinions of his circle. [Sidenote: [385-383 B.C.]]