A few days more and the ten thousand were on Greek soil. Here they rested for a month, offering glad sacrifices of thanksgiving to Zeus, who had brought them back in safety to their own land.
CHAPTER LXXX
PELOPIDAS AND EPAMINONDAS
When Sparta heard that Artaxerxes had been able neither to force the ten thousand to surrender nor to slay them, she thought that his army could not be very powerful. So, confident in her own strength she went to war against the great king, dreaming that she would conquer Persia and add it to her dominions.
But instead of conquering the country, the Spartans were so often defeated that, in 387 B.C., they were willing to make peace on any terms which Artaxerxes chose to make.
And the king saw to it that the terms were severe, for he demanded that the Greek cities in Asia, which had now been free for ninety years, should once again acknowledge him as their lord.
To those Greeks who loved their country truly, it seemed better to fight to death than to accept such terms. Nor will you wonder at this as you read the proud words in which the king couched his demands.
‘King Artaxerxes thinks it just,’ he wrote, ‘that the Greek cities in Asia should belong to him. He also thinks it just to leave all the other Grecian cities both small and great independent, except three cities which are to belong to Athens as of old. Should any parties refuse to accept this peace I will make war upon them, along with those who are of the same mind, both by land and sea, with ships and with money.’
The states of Greece accepted these terms, which were carved on stones and placed in their temples, so that it could be seen by all that Greece was no longer free.
Although Sparta had been defeated by the Persians, she was the most powerful state in Greece. Wishing to add to her possessions, she determined to seize the little town of Thebes, which at this time was friendly with Athens.