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One effect of the battle was a renewed alliance between Sparta and Argos, and the re-establishment of an oligarchal government in the latter city. Mantinea submitted to Sparta, and the Achaian towns were obliged to submit to a remodeling of their political institutions, according to the views of Sparta.
Pericles, therefore, fitting out a fleet, went and broke up the oligarchal government at Samos, and, taking fifty of the principal men of the town as hostages, and as many of their children, sent them to the Isle of Lemnos, there to be kept, though he had offers, as some relate, of a talent apiece for himself from each one of the hostages, and of many other presents from those who were anxious not to have a democracy.
The bleached, white hearts of the oligarchal party had been lashed into fury by his withering ridicule and charge of hypocrisy, but the climax came like a tornado when the poet's sense of fair play caused him to satirise the Prince Regent and eulogise the Emperor Napoleon with unique pathos and passion. This was high treason! He had at last put himself beyond the mercy of the chosen people.
In three years after the death of Periander, 585 B.C., the oligarchal power was restored, and Corinth allied herself with Sparta in her schemes of aggrandizement. As a result of commercial opulence, the people succeeded in overthrowing the government, an oligarchy of Dorian conquerors, and elevating a demagogue, Theagenes, to the supreme power, B.C. 630.
It is pretty certain that England could easily have kept out of the continental embroil had the Government been composed of men of talent and free from oligarchal prejudices, whereas all we got out of it, plus the loss of life and treasure, was a share in the questionable glory of Waterloo, the custody of the great figure who was betrayed by some of his own subjects, "the odium of having his death bequeathed to the reigning family of England," and the fact that Louis XVIII., by his own admission to the French nation, was put on the throne by our own precious Prince Regent.
In the revolution which followed, the patricians recovered their power, and a new form of government was instituted, republican in name, but oligarchal and aristocratic in reality, two hundred and forty-five years after the foundation of the city, B.C. 510.
This closed the negotiations, which Pericles foresaw would be vain and useless, since the Spartans were obstinately bent on war. The first imperious blow was struck by the Thebans—allies of Sparta. They surprised Platæa in the night. The gates were opened by the oligarchal party; a party of Thebans were admitted into the agora; but the people rallied, and the party was overwhelmed.
But Alcibiades had promised too much, the satrap having no idea of lending aid to Athens, and yet he extricated himself by such exaggerated demands, which he knew the Athenians would never concede to Persia, that negotiations were broken off, and a reconciliation was made between Persia and Sparta. The oligarchal conspirators had, however, gone so far that a retreat was impossible.
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