The supremacy which the Spartans acquired in 404 B.C. was lost again in 371 B.C. In that year an army with which they invaded Bœotia was severely defeated by the Thebans under Epaminondas; the victorious general marched into the Peloponnesus, deprived the Spartans of Messenia, and, summoning from all parts the descendants of Messenians who had gone into exile, established them as an independent people in the new city of Messenê on the site of the old stronghold of Ithomê. At the same time he founded the Arcadian city of Megalê Polis (in Latin Megalopolis) to bar the way between the Spartans and their old allies the Eleians: and in the year 369 B.C. he ensured the permanence of his work by winning the decisive battle of Mantineia. The Spartans were reduced lower than they had been for two centuries: but adversity did not restore them to what they had been before the days of their prosperity. The number of men possessed of wealth, small already, steadily became smaller, so that in the reign of Agis IV. (about 243 B.C.) the whole number of the Spartiatæ did not exceed seven hundred; of these only about a hundred were landowners, and the rest were reduced to poverty and distress[116]. [116] Plutarch, _Agis_ 5. The office of the Ephors shared in the general deterioration of the Spartan commonwealth, and Aristotle (writing about 330 B.C.) speaks of it with some severity. We can indeed see from his remarks that access to the office was not obtained by bribery, for very poor citizens were frequently chosen: the election was conducted under a system which seemed to him very puerile, but which did not close the door to poverty. On the other hand the Ephors when in office frequently accepted bribes: and he says that on one occasion they did all that in them lay towards the ruin of the state. They often spent the wealth that they got by such dishonest means in leading a life of extreme self-indulgence, in strong contrast with the hardships which the poorer citizens endured[117]. [117] Aristotle, _Politics_ II. 9. 19-24. Welldon, pp. 80, 81.