SPARTA AND THEBES. 193 case yet more formidable. The vanquished returning from Leuk- tra were numerous, while the severe loss sustained in the battle amply attested their bravery. Aware of the danger of enforcing against them the established custom, the ephors referred the case to Agesilaus ; who proposed that for that time and case the cus- tomary penalties should be allowed to sleep ; but should be revived afterwards and come into force as before. Such was the step ac cordingly taken j 1 so that the survivors from this fatal battle-field were enabled to mingle with the remaining citizens without dis- honor or degradation. The step was. indeed doubly necessary, considering the small aggregate number of fully qualified citi- zens ; which number always tended to decline, from the nature of the Spartan political franchise combined with the exigen- cies of Spartan training, 2 and could not bear even so great a diminution as that of the four hundred slain at Leuktra. " Sparta (says Aristotle) could not stand up against a single defeat, but was ruined through the small number of her citizens." 3 The cause here adverted to by Aristotle, as explaining the utter loss of ascendency abroad, and the capital diminution both of pow- er and of inviolability at home, which will now be found to come thick upon Sparta, was undoubtedly real and important. But a fact still more important was, the alteration of opinion produced everywhere In Greece with regard to Sparta, by the sudden shock of the battle of Leuktra. All the prestige and old associations connected with her long-established power vanished ; while the hostility and fears, inspired both by herself and by her partisans, but hitherto reluctantly held back in silence, now burst forth into open manifestation. 1 Plutarch, Agesil. c. 30 ; Plutarch, Apophtheg. Lacon. p. 214 B. ; Apoph- theg. Reg. p. 191 C. ; Polytenus, ii, 1, 13. A similar suspension of penalties, for the special occasion, was enacted after the great defeat of Agis and the Lacedemonians by Antipater, B. c. 330. Akrotatus, son of King Kleomenes, was the only person at Sparta who opposed the suspension (Diodor. xix, 70). He incurred the strongest unpopularity for such opposition. Compare also Justin, xxviii, 4 de- scribing the public feeling at Sparta after the defeat at Sellasia. 1 The explanation of Spartan citizenship will be found in an earlier part of this History, Vol. II, Ch. vi.
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