e all the military spirit and ambition, gave
permanence to all conquests, so that in the Persian wars Sparta took the
load of the land forces. The great rival power of Sparta was Athens, but
this was founded on maritime skill and enterprise. It was to the navy of
Athens, next after the hoplites of Sparta, that the successful resistance
to the empire of Persia may be attributed.

(M598) After the Persian wars the rivalship between Athens and Sparta is
the most prominent feature in Grecian history. The confederacy of Delos
gave to Athens supremacy over the sea, and the great commercial prosperity
of Athens under Pericles, and the empire gained over the Ionian colonies
and the islands of the AEgaean, made Athens, perhaps, the leading State. It
was the richest, the most cultivated, and the most influential of the
Grecian States, and threatened to absorb gradually all the other States of
Greece in her empire.

(M599) This ascendency and rapid growth in wealth and power were beheld
with jealous eyes, not only by Sparta, but other States which she
controlled, or with which she was in alliance. The consequence was, the
Peloponnesian war, which lasted half a generation, and which, after
various vicissitudes and fortunes, terminated auspiciously for Sparta, but
disastrously to Greece as a united nation. The Persian wars bound all the
States together by a powerful Hellenic sentiment of patriotism. The
Peloponnesian war dissevered this Panhellenic tie. The disaster at
Syracuse was fatal to Athenian supremacy, and even independence. But for
this Athens might have remained the great power of Greece. The democratic
organization of the government gave great vigor and enterprise to all the
ambitious projects of Athens. If Alcibiades had lent his vast talents to
the building up of his native State, even then the fortunes of Athens
might have been different. But he was a traitor, and threw all his
energies on the side of Sparta, until it was too late for Athens to
recover the prestige she had won. He partially redeemed his honor, but had
he been animated by the spirit of Pericles or Nicias, to say nothing of
the self-devotion of Miltiades, he might have raised the power of Athens
to a height which nothing could have resisted.

(M600) Lysander completed the war which Brasidas had so nobly carried on,
and took possession of Athens, abolished the democratic constitution,
demolished the walls, and set up, as his creatures, a set of tyrants,