Such loose dealing of the Thessalians with their public revenues helps us to understand how Philip of Macedon afterwards got into his hands the management of their harbors and customs-duties (Demosthen. Olynth. i, p. 15; ii. p. 20). It forms a striking contrast with the exactness of the Athenian people about their public receipts and disbursements, as testified in the inscriptions yet remaining.
[301] Xen. Hellen. ii, 3, 4.
The story (told in Plutarch, De Gen. Socrat. p. 583 F.) of Jason sending a large sum of money to Thebes, at some period anterior to the recapture of the Kadmeia, for the purpose of corrupting Epaminondas,—appears not entitled to credit. Before that time, Epaminondas was too little known to be worth corrupting; moreover, Jason did not become tagus of Thessaly until long after the recapture of the Kadmeia (Xen. Hellen. vi, 1, 18, 19).
[302] See the interesting account of this mission, and the speech of Polydamas, which I have been compelled greatly to abridge (in Xen. Hellen. vi, 1, 4-18).
[303] Xen. Hellen. vi, 2, 3; Diodor. xv, 45.
The statements of Diodorus are not clear in themselves; besides that on some points, though not in the main, they contradict Xenophon. Diodorus states that those exiles whom Timotheus brought back to Zakynthus, were the philo-Spartan leaders, who had been recently expelled for their misrule under the empire of Sparta. This statement must doubtless be incorrect. The exiles whom Timotheus restored must have belonged to the anti-Spartan party in the island.
But Diodorus appears to me to have got into confusion by representing that universal and turbulent reaction against the philo-Spartan oligarchies, which really did not take place until after the battle of Leuktra—as if it had taken place some three years earlier. The events recounted in Diodor. xv, 40, seem to me to belong to a period after the battle of Leuktra.
Diodorus also seems to have made a mistake in saying that the Athenians sent Ktesikles as auxiliary commander to Zakynthus (xv, 46); whereas this very commander is announced by himself in the next chapter (as well as by Xenophon, who calls him Stesikles) as sent to Korkyra (Hellen. v, 2, 10).
I conceive Diodorus to have inadvertently mentioned this Athenian expedition under Stesiklês or Ktesiklês, twice over; once as sent to Zakynthus—then again, as sent to Korkyra. The latter is the truth. No Athenian expedition at all appears on this occasion to have gone to Zakynthus; for Xenophon enumerates the Zakynthians among those who helped to fit out the fleet of Mnasippus (v, 2, 3).
On the other hand, I see no reason for calling in question the reality of the two Lacedæmonian expeditions, in the last half of 374 B.C.—one under Aristokrates to Zakynthus, the other under Alkidas to Korkyra—which Diodorus mentions (Diod. xv, 45, 46). It is true that Xenophon does not notice either of them; but they are noway inconsistent with the facts which he does state.