PARTIALITY OF XENOPHON. 39 dedly bettered by the change. Such an assurance is only to be credited, on the ground that, being captives under the Grecian laws of war, they may have been thankful to escape the more terrible liabilities of death or personal slavery, at the price of for- feiting their civic community. That their feelings towards the change were those of genuine aversion, is shown by their subse- quent conduct after the battle of Leuktra. As soon as the fear of Sparta was removed, they flocked together, with unanimous im- pulse, to re-constitute and re-fortify their dismantled city. 1 It would have been strange indeed had the fact been otherwise ; for attachment to a civic community was the strongest political in- stinct of the Greek mind. The citizen of a town was averse often most unhappily averse to compromise the separate and autonomous working of his community by joining in any larger political combination, however equitably framed, and however it might promise on the whole an increase of Hellenic dignity. But still more vehemently did he shrink from the idea of breaking up his town into separate villages, and exchanging the character of a citizen for that of a villager, which was nothing less than great 1 This is mentioned by Xenophon himself (Hellen. vi, 5, 3). The Lace- demonians, though they remonstrated against it, were at that time too much humiliated to interfere by force and prevent it. The reason why they did not interfere by force (according to Xenophon) was that a general peace had just then been sworn, guaranteeing autonomy to every distinct town, so that the Mantineans under this peace had a right to do what they did arparevfiv ye fievToi ETT' aiirovf ov dvvarbv edoKEi elvai, eV avrovo/ua rrif elpTjvris ye-yevTj/i.evrje (vi, 5, 5). Of this second peace, Athens was the originator and the voucher; but the autonomy which it guaranteed was only the same as had been professedly guaranteed by the peace of Antalki- das, of which Sparta had boen the voucher. General autonomy, as interpreted by Athens, was a different thing from general autonomy as it had been when interpreted by Sparta. The Spar- tans, when they had in their own hands both the power of interpretation and the power of enforcement, did not scruple to falsify autonomy so complete- ly as to lay siege to Mantinea and break up the city by force ; while, when interpretation and enforcement had passed to Athens, they at once recog- nized that the treaty precluded them from a much less violent measure of interference. We may see by this, how thoroughly partial and Laconian is the account given by Xenophon of the SIOIKLOIS of Mantinea ; how completely he keep* out of view the odious side of that proceeding.
