In 398 or 397 B.C., before Agesilaus had reigned a whole year, a conspiracy against the Spartan government was set on foot by a man named Cinadon. Xenophon in his account of its detection says that Cinadon was a young man and vigorous in body and mind but was not one of the Equals (οὐ μέντοι τῶν ὁμοίων). When the informer was questioned by the Ephors, he said Cinadon had expressed confidence that many of the Helots, the Neodamodês, the Inferiors (οἱ ὑπομείονες), and the Periœci were in sympathy with his aims: for whenever men of these classes talked about the Spartiatæ, they could not conceal that they would like to eat them raw[113]. The story shows that the Equals were the highest of all the classes at Sparta, and that the Inferiors, being distinct from the Helots, the Neodamodês and the Periœci, were men who had been Spartiatæ but had lost their position. The difference between the Equals and the Inferiors is but imperfectly known. Aristotle tells us that any Spartan who was unable to pay his share of the cost of the public mess-table was deprived of his rights as a citizen, and many had thus been disfranchised[114]. From this we may infer that anyone who sank into the ranks of the Inferiors lost not only his vote in the assembly, which was of little value, as the assemblies were not influential, but also his right of being trained as a Spartan: hence he would have but a poor chance of rising to military distinction or of obtaining any position of importance. [113] Xenophon, _Hellenica_ III. 3. 5 and 6. [114] Aristotle, _Politics_ II. 9. 31 and 32. Welldon, _Translation_, p. 83. When the Peloponnesian war ended in 404 B.C., the cities of Asia and the Ægean sea came under the power of Sparta. To each city a harmost or regulator was sent to establish an oligarchical government consisting usually of a decarchy or board of ten citizens distinguished for servility towards the Spartans and readiness to punish any sign of patriotic spirit with death or banishment and confiscation. Besides the harmosts, military detachments were sent to enforce the wishes of the Spartans in their new possessions: both the harmosts and the military commanders were harsh governors, and some of them amassed large fortunes by extortion[115]. They took home the wealth that they had acquired and thus introduced the inequalities among the Spartiatæ which were so conspicuous and so invidious in the time of Cinadon. [115] For the harmosts see Xenophon, _Hellenica_ III. 5. § 13.