Thus far the able leaders of the Theban councils, profiting from the animosity so extensively prevailing against Lacedæmon, had kept their confederacy unanimous and zealous, under the supremacy of Thebes. But it was little likely that, by any management, so many states could be long retained in patient submission to so new a superiority. The long deference of the Grecian republics to Lacedæmonian command, amounting, in many instances, to a zealous, and sometimes extending to a general, loyalty towards the superior people, is a political phenomenon perhaps singular in the history of mankind. But that deference was paid to a superiority, not suddenly obtained, but growing from the extraordinary institutions under which the Lacedæmonians lived; which made them really a superior people, obviously fittest, in the divided and tumultuary state of the Greek nation, to command in war and to arbitrate in peace: whence even still, when the political power of Lacedæmon was so declining, the estimation of the Lacedæmonian people, we are told, was such that at the Olympian and other national meetings a Lacedæmonian was an object of curiosity and admiration for strangers, more even than the conquerors in the games. The superiority of Athens, also, though in few instances, or for a short time only, supported by a loyalty like that which Lacedæmon enjoyed, accruing suddenly, yet had resulted from long preparation. Legislation more perfected, talents and manners more cultivated, and an extraordinary succession of able men at the head of affairs, gave to the Athenians an effectual superiority which the people of other republics saw and felt. But Thebes, without any advantage of ancient prejudice in favour of her pretensions, without any public institutions to be admired, recently emerged from political subjection, possessing indeed a large and disciplined population which might infuse some terror, was yet become so suddenly eminent only through the blaze of talents of a few, and principally of one extraordinary man, leading her councils, and commanding her armies. If therefore, in any other state of the confederacy, where military force was not very inferior, a similar blaze of character should occur, that state would presently feel itself equal to Thebes, and be prepared to break a connection involving an admission of her superiority. [Sidenote: [368 B.C.]]