42 HISTORY OF GREECE. Those exiles who had incurred the condemnation of their fel- low-citizens for subservience to Sparta, now found the season con- venient for soliciting Spartan intervention to procure their return. It was in this manner that a body of exiled political leaders from Phlius. whose great merit it was that the city when under their government had been zealous in service to Sparta, but had now become lukewarm or even disaffected in the hands of their oppo- nents, obtained from the ephors a message, polite in form but authoritative in substance, addressed to the Phliasians, requiring that the exiles should be restored, as friends of Sparta banished without just cause. 1 While the Spartan power, for the few years succeeding the peace of Antalkidas, was thus decidedly in ascending movement on land, efforts were also made to reestablish it at sea. Several of the Cyclades and other smaller islands were again rendered tributary. In this latter sphere, however, Athens became her competitor. Since the peace, and the restoration of Lemnos, Im bros and Skyros, combined with the refortified Peirasus and its Long Walls, Athenian commerce and naval power had been re- viving, though by slow and humble steps. Like the naval force of England compared with France, the warlike marine of Athens rested upon a considerable commercial marine, which latter hardly existed at all in Laconia. Sparta had no seamen except con- strained Helots or paid foreigners ; 2 while the commerce of Pei- rseus had both required and maintained a numerous population of this character. The harbor of Peiroeus was convenient in respect of accommodation, and well-stocked with artisans, while Laco- nia had few artisans, and was notoriously destitute of harbors. 3 Accordingly, in this maritime competition, Athens, though but the shadow of her former self, started at an advantage as compared with Sparta, and in spite of the superiority of the latter on land, was enabled to compete with her in acquiring tributary dependen- cies among the smaller islands of the -ZEgean. To these latter, who had no marine of their own, and who (like Athens herself) required habitual supplies of imported corn, it was important to 1 Xen. Hellen. v, 2, 8-10. The consequences of this forced return are difficult to foresee ; they will ppear in a subsequent page. 2 Xen. Hellen. vii, 1, 3-12. 3 Xen. Hell, iv, 8, 7.
