[621] The importance of maintaining these lines, as a protection to Athens against invasion from Sparta, is illustrated in Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 19, and Andokides, Or. iii, De Pace, s. 26.
[622] Harpokration, v. ξενικὸν ἐν Κορίνθῳ. Philochorus, Fragm. 150, ed. Didot.
[623] Lysias, Orat. xix, (De Bonis Aristophanis) s. 21.
[624] Xen. Hellen. iv, 8, 11.
[625] Xen. Hellen. iv, 4, 1; iv, 5, 1.
[626] I dissent from Mr. Fynes Clinton as well as from M. Rehdantz (Vitæ Iphicratis, etc., c. 4, who in the main agrees with Dodwell’s Annales Xenophontei) in their chronological arrangement of these events.
They place the battle fought by Praxitas within the Long Walls of Corinth in 393 B.C., and the destruction of the Lacedæmonian mora or division by Iphikrates (the monthly date of which is marked by its having immediately succeeded the Isthmian games), in 392 B.C. I place the former event in 392 B.C.; the latter in 390 B.C., immediately after the Isthmian games of 390 B.C.
If we study the narrative of Xenophon, we shall find, that after describing (iv, 3) the battle of Korôneia (August 394 B.C.) with its immediate consequences, and the return of Agesilaus home,—he goes on in the next chapter to narrate the land-war about or near Corinth, which he carries down without interruption (through Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, of Book iv.) to 389 B.C.
But in Chapter 8 of Book iv, he leaves the land-war, and takes up the naval operations, from and after the battle of Knidus (Aug. 394 B.C.). He recounts how Pharnabazus and Konon came across the Ægean with a powerful fleet in the spring of 393 B.C., and how after various proceedings, they brought the fleet to the Saronic Gulf and the Isthmus of Corinth, where they must have arrived at or near midsummer 393 B.C.
Now it appears to me certain, that these proceedings of Pharnabazus with the fleet, recounted in the eighth chapter, come, in point of date, before the seditious movements and the coup d’état at Corinth, which are recounted in the fourth chapter. At the time when Pharnabazus was at Corinth in midsummer 393 B.C., the narrative of Xenophon (iv, 8, 8-10) leads us to believe that the Corinthians were prosecuting the war zealously, and without discontent: the money and encouragement which Pharnabazus gave them was calculated to strengthen such ardor. It was by aid of this money that the Corinthians fitted out their fleet under Agathinus, and acquired for a time the maritime command of the Gulf.