territory. Olynthus, indeed, to a certain extent recovered herself, and became again a flourishing and independent city; but the mischief which had been already done was past remedy.
With the great battle of Leuctra in 371 B.C. Sparta's ascendancy ceased. Thebes was now raised by the illustrious Epameinondas into the first place in Greece. North of the Peloponnese she could do as she pleased. She had Thessaly quite under her control, and Macedon was little better than a dependency. Her next step, after Leuctra, was to strengthen herself in the Peloponnese, and to complete the humiliation of Sparta. This was done by the founding of the two cities Megalopolis and Messene, under the direction of Epameinondas. Sparta, as we have seen, aimed at breaking up and dissolving federations; Thebes, on the contrary, formed the Arcadian townships, forty in number, into a confederacy, of which Megalopolis, the Great City, was made the centre. Messene was then founded on Mount Ithome, and became the rallying-place of a population which had long been unwillingly subject to Sparta. What had hitherto been Spartan territory was actually annexed to it. Sparta's limits were thus greatly narrowed. On the north and on the west she was confronted by independent communities, and her position in the Peloponnese was wellnigh destroyed. Though Thebes soon fell back from the pre-eminence to which the genius of Epameinondas had lifted her, Sparta was never able to regain her ancient prestige.
Athens, from some cause or other, had much more elasticity and power of recovery than Sparta. There
