That the Long Walls and fortifications of Peiraeus should be destroyed; that the Athenian fleet, with the exception of twelve vessels, should be surrendered; that the exiles should be restored; and lastly, that the Athenians should acknowledge the headship of Sparta in peace and war, leaving to her the choice of friends and foes, and following her lead by land and sea.[20] The Athenians themselves were made to help in the destruction of the walls, and as they did so, their enemies rejoiced to the music of the flute, believing that with the fall of Athens would dawn a day of liberty for Greece. For over thirty years Sparta ruled in Greece. At the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, she had demanded of Athens that she should restore the liberties of all the Greeks who were her allies. Athens had refused, and now the Greek world waited anxiously to see what use Sparta would make of her great victory. It soon became evident that the rule of Sparta was not to be a light one. Military governors were placed in every city of the old Delian League, and the citizens were forced to pay a heavy tribute to {317} Sparta. Thirty men were set to rule in Athens, and for the eight months that these Thirty were in power, Athens endured cruelty, tyranny and lawlessness. The Spartan domination soon became so unendurable that one by one a number of Athenians fled from the city and took refuge in Thebes: in Thebes, who had hitherto been one of the bitterest enemies of Athens, but who now realized that freedom and justice were not to be found in the Spartan ideal of empire, for it was nothing less than empire at which Sparta was aiming. At last a sufficient number of exiles had gathered at Thebes for them to make an attempt to drive out the Thirty from Athens. They were successful, and the old Athenian form of government was restored. But there was no real peace, and for a few years fighting went on in different places. Sometimes Sparta was successful, sometimes Athens, but nothing decisive happened. At last Sparta began to intrigue with Persia, and in 386 B.C., Artaxerxes the King interfered in the affairs of Greece, and proposed terms of peace, known as the King's Peace, which were accepted. The Greek cities in Asia Minor were to belong once more to the Persians, and all the other Greek city-states were to be independent, and the treaty concluded with the words: "Should any refuse to accept this peace, I, Artaxerxes, will make war upon them, with the help of those who are of my mind, both by land and sea, with ships and with money."