Peloponnesus had for some years been violently agitated by political convulsions, and had been the scene of incessant struggles between the two leading parties, the friends of aristocratical and of democratical institutions. It seems that the principles on which the Peace of Antalcidas was professedly founded had encouraged the partisans of democracy to hope that they might establish their ascendency, wherever they were the strongest, without any obstruction from Sparta. Her conduct towards Phlius and Mantinea must have checked these hopes; yet they seem to have revived when the new confederacy between Thebes and Athens, after the recovery of the Cadmea and the revolt of several maritime states compelled Sparta to observe more moderation towards her remaining allies. In many places the aristocratical party was overpowered, and suffered severe retaliation for the oppression it had exercised during the period of its domination. But these triumphs were only the beginning of a series of fierce and bloody contests. The exiles were continually on the watch for an opportunity of regaining what they had lost, and the attempt, whether it succeeded or failed, commonly ended in a massacre. The oligarchical exiles of Phigalea, having seized a fortress near the town, surprised it during a festival, while the multitude was assembled in the theatre, and made a great slaughter among the defenceless crowd, though they were at last forced to retreat, and take refuge in Sparta. The Corinthian exiles, who had found shelter at Argos, were baffled in a similar enterprise, and killed one another to avoid falling into the hands of the opposite party, which immediately instituted a rigorous inquiry at Corinth, and condemned numbers to death or exile on the charge of abetting the conspiracy. Like scenes took place at Megara, Sicyon, and Phlius. The confluence of democratical exiles from other cities tended to keep up a state of constant unnatural excitement at Argos; and there were demagogues who took advantage of it to instigate the multitude against the wealthier citizens into a conspiracy for self-defence.