But the Thebans appear to have been too much elated by their success, in this extraordinary and very important affair, for perfect prudence to hold through their political conduct; whether their able chiefs now erred, or rather popular presumption, in the badness of their constitution, to which Polybius bears testimony, was not to be restrained. They assumed immediately to be arbiters of Greece. Their summonses for a congress of deputies from the several republics to meet in Thebes were generally obeyed. The Persian who had accompanied the return of Pelopidas, attended, with the king’s rescript in his hand. This was read and interpreted to the congress, while the king’s seal appendant was ostentatiously displayed. The Thebans proposed, as the condition of friendship with the king and with Thebes, that the deputies should immediately swear to the acceptance of the terms, in the names of their respective cities. Readily however, as the congress had met in Thebes, the deputies did not come so prepared to take the law from Thebes. Not simply objecting to the proposed oath, Lycomedes insisted that “Thebes was not the place in which the congress should have been assembled.” The Thebans exclaiming, with marks of resentment, that he was promoting discord in the confederacy, he declared his resolution to hold his seat in the congress no longer; and, the other Arcadian deputies concurring with him, they all retired together. The result seems to have been that the congress broke up without coming to any resolution. Disappointed and thwarted thus, the Thebans could not yet resolve to abandon their project of arrogating that supremacy over the Greek nation which Lacedæmon had so long held; long indeed by the voluntary concession of a large majority of it. They sent requisitions separately to every city to accede to the terms proposed; expecting that the fear of incurring the united enmity of Thebes and of the king, says the contemporary historian, would bring all severally to compliance. The Corinthians, however, setting the example of a firm refusal, with the added observation, that “they wanted no alliance, no interchange of oaths with the king,” it was followed by most of the cities. And thus, continues Xenophon, this attempt of Pelopidas and the Thebans to acquire the empire of Greece finally failed.