and the king--a peace, moreover, exactly suited to the
aspirations of the king himself; in other words, the Lacedaemonians gave
up all claim to the Hellenic cities in Asia as against the king, while
for their own part they were content that all the islands and other
cities should be independent. "Such being our unbiased wishes," he
continued, "for what earthly reason should (the Hellenes or) the king
go to war with us? or why should he expend his money? The king is
guaranteed against attack on the part of Hellas, since the Athenians are
powerless apart from our hegemony, and we are powerless so long as the
separate states are independent." The proposals of Antalcidas sounded
very pleasantly in the ears of Tiribazus, but to the opponents of
Sparta they were the merest talk. The Athenians were apprehensive of
an agreement which provided for the independence of the cities in the
islands, whereby they might be deprived of Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros.
The Thebans, again, were afraid of being compelled to let the Boeotian
states go free. The Argives did not see how such treaty contracts
and covenants were compatible with the realisation of their own great
object--the absorption of Corinth by Argos. And so it came to pass that
this peace (16) proved abortive, and the representatives departed each
to his own home.

(15) See Plut. "Ages." xxiii. (Clough, iv. p. 27); and for the date
B.C. 392 (al. B.C. 393) see Grote, "H. G." ix. 498.

(16) See Andoc. "de Pace"; Jebb, "Attic Or." i. 83, 128 foll. Prof.
Jebb assigns this speech to B.C. 390 rather than B.C. 391. See
also Grote, "H. G." ix. 499; Diod. xiv. 110.

Tiribazus, on his side, thought it hardly consistent with his own safety
to adopt the cause of the Lacedaemonians without the concurrence of
the king--a scruple which did not prevent him from privately presenting
Antalcidas with a sum of money, in hopes that when the Athenians and
their allies discovered that the Lacedaemonians had the wherewithal to
furnish a fleet, they might perhaps be more disposed to desire peace.
Further, accepting the statements of the Lacedaemonians as true, he
took on himself to secure the person of Conon, as guilty of wrongdoing
towards the king, and shut him up. (17) That done, he set off up
country to the king to recount the proposals of Lacedaemon, with his own
subsequent capture of Conon as a mischievous man, and to ask for further
guidance on all these matters.

(17) See Diod