The discontents against the war (recounted in chap. 4 seq.) could not have commenced until a considerable time after the departure of Pharnabazus. They arose out of causes which only took effect after a long continuance,—the hardships of the land-war, the losses of property and slaves, the jealousy towards Attica and Bœotia as being undisturbed, etc. The Lacedæmonian and Peloponnesian aggressive force at Sikyon cannot possibly have been established before the autumn of 394 B.C., and was most probably placed there early in the spring of 393 B.C. Its effects were brought about, not by one great blow, but by repetition of ravages and destructive annoyance; and all the effects which it produced previous to midsummer 393 B.C. would be more than compensated by the presence, the gifts, and the encouragement of Pharnabazus with his powerful fleet. Moreover, after his departure, too, the Corinthians were at first successful at sea, and acquired the command of the Gulf, which, however, they did not retain for more than a year, if so much. Hence, it is not likely that any strong discontent against the war began before the early part of 392 B.C.
Considering all these circumstances, I think it reasonable to believe that the coup d’état and massacre at Corinth took place (not in 393 B.C., as Mr. Clinton and M. Rehdantz place it, but) in 392 B.C.; and the battle within the Long Walls rather later in the same year.
Next, the opinion of the same two authors, as well as of Dodwell,—that the destruction of the Lacedæmonian mora by Iphicrates took place in the spring of 392 B.C.,—is also, in my view, erroneous. If this were true, it would be necessary to pack all the events mentioned in Xenophon, iv, 4, into the year 393 B.C.; which I hold to be impossible. If the destruction of the mora did not occur in the spring of 393 B.C., we know that it could not have occurred until the spring of 390 B.C.; that is, the next ensuing Isthmian games, two years afterwards. And this last will be found to be its true date; thus leaving full time, but not too much time, for the antecedent occurrences.
[627] Plutarch, Dion. c. 53.
[628] Xen. Hellen. iv, 4, 2. Γνόντες δὲ οἱ Ἀργεῖοι καὶ Βοιωτοὶ καὶ Ἀθηναῖοι καὶ Κορινθίων οἵ τε τῶν παρὰ βασιλέως χρημάτων μετεσχηκότες, καὶ οἱ τοῦ πολέμου αἰτιώτατοι γεγενημένοι, ὡς, εἰ μὴ ἐκποδὼν ποιήσαιντο τοὺς ἐπὶ τὴν εἰρήνην τετραμμένους, κινδυνεύσει πάλιν ἡ πόλις λακωνίσαι—οὕτω δὴ καὶ σφαγὰς ἐπεχείρουν ποιεῖσθαι.
iv, 4, 4. Οἱ δὲ νεώτεροι, ὑποπτεύσαντος Πασιμήλου τὸ μέλλον ἔσεσθαι, ἡσυχίαν ἔσχον ἐν τῷ Κρανίῳ· ὡς δὲ τῆς κραυγῆς ἤσθοντο, καὶ φεύγοντές τινες ἐκ τοῦ πράγματος ἀφίκοντο πρὸς αὐτούς, ἐκ τούτου ἀναδραμόντες κατὰ τὸν Ἀκροκόρινθον, προσβαλόντας μὲν Ἀργείους καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους ἀπεκρούσαντο, etc.
[629] Thucyd. iii, 70.
[630] Diodorus (xiv, 86) gives this number, which seems very credible. Xenophon (iv, 4, 4) only says πολλοί.
[631] In recounting this alternation of violence projected, violence perpetrated, recourse on the one side to a foreign ally, treason on the other by admitting an avowed enemy,—which formed the modus operandi of opposing parties in the oligarchical Corinth,—I invite the reader to contrast it with the democratical Athens.
At Athens, in the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, there were precisely the same causes at work, and precisely the same marked antithesis of parties, as those which here disturbed Corinth. There was first, a considerable Athenian minority who opposed the war with Sparta from the first; next, when the war began, the proprietors of Attica saw their lands ruined, and were compelled either to carry away, or to lose, their servants and cattle, so that they obtained no returns. The intense discontent, the angry complaints, the bitter conflict of parties, which these circumstances raised among the Athenian citizens,—not to mention the aggravation of all these symptoms by the terrible epidemic,—are marked out in Thucydides, and have been recorded in the fifth volume of this history. Not only the positive loss and suffering, but all other causes of exasperation, stood at a higher pitch at Athens in the early part of the Peloponnesian war, than at Corinth in 392 B.C.