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Ancient history tells us of a people who used to intoxicate their slaves, and, while they were in that condition, display them to their sons, to disgust them early with the degrading vice of drunkenness. The emigrants who have left our shores, more particularly the Irish, have voluntarily enacted the part formerly assigned to the slaves of the Spartans.
The Spartans buried him close to the temple, and gave Pallas two statues of him, to make up for the suppliant she had lost, but they were always reproached for the sacrilege. Themistocles was a friend of Pausanias, and was suspected of being mixed up in his plots.
With the intention of cheering up the young men, and enabling them to shake off their excessive despondency, he led an army into Arcadia. He was careful to avoid a battle, but captured a small fort belonging to the people of Mantinea, and overran their territory; thus greatly raising the spirits of the Spartans, who began to pluck up courage, and regard their city as not altogether ruined.
It was thus that the Spartans found themselves bound by solemn oath to obey Lycurgus' laws forever; and as long as they remembered this promise, they were a thriving and happy people. Not very far from Sparta, and next to Laconia, was a country called Mes-se´ni-a, which was much more fertile, and had long been occupied by a kindred race descended from Le´lex, brother of Lacedæmon.
Mardonius had advanced to the neighbor-hood of Plataea, when he encountered that part of the Grecian army composed mostly of Spartans and Lacedaemonians, commanded by Pausa'nias, and numbering about fifty thousand men.
XXI. So now Pelopidas, when asleep in the camp, seemed to see the maidens weeping over their tombs and invoking curses on the Spartans, and Skedasus, who bade him sacrifice a red virgin to the maidens, if he wished to conquer his enemies. And as this command seemed to him shocking and impious, he started up and consulted the prophets and the generals.
In the name of Sparta he exercised almost uncontrolled authority in the cities he had reduced, including Athens itself. But it was soon discovered that, instead of the freedom promised by the Spartans, only another empire had been established, whilst Lysander was even meditating to extort from the subject cities a yearly tribute of one thousand talents.
The Argives and their allies were dumb-foundered by the sudden disappearance of the Spartans; and when they had recovered from their astonishment, they waited impatiently for the order to pursue the runaways. As no such order was given, cries of "Treason!" arose in the ranks, and the generals were openly accused of having sold themselves to the enemy.
These facts exhibit the civil polity which became so common during Greek and Roman times, and obtained again in Italy after the fall of the empire and the barbarian invasions, up to the time of the Renaissance. The Helots were a rural people dwelling on the lands of the Spartans which lay about the capital or in the Laconian towns.
He found that it was time for him to return. The southern cities and states of Greece had not been unanimous in raising him to the office which his father had held. The Spartans and some others were opposed to him.
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