. xiv. 85; and Corn. Nep. 5.

On the arrival of Tiribazus at the palace, the king sent down Struthas
to take charge of the seaboard district. The latter, however, was a
strong partisan of Athens and her allies, since he found it impossible
to forget the long list of evils which the king's country had suffered
at the hands of Agesilaus; so that the Lacedaemonians, contrasting
the hostile disposition of the new satrap towards themselves with his
friendliness to the Athenians, sent Thibron to deal with him by force of
arms.

B.C. 391. (18) That general crossed over and established his base
of operations in Ephesus and the towns in the plain of the
Maeander--Priene, Leucophrys, and Achilleum--and proceeded to harry the
king's territory, sparing neither live nor dead chattels. But as time
went on, Struthas, who could not but note the disorderly, and indeed
recklessly scornful manner in which the Lacedaemonian brought up his
supports on each occasion, despatched a body of cavalry into the plain.
Their orders were to gallop down and scour the plain, making a clean
sweep (19) of all they could lay their hands on. Thibron, as it
befell, had just finished breakfast, and was returning to the mess
with Thersander the flute-player. The latter was not only a good
flute-player, but, as affecting Lacedaemonian manners, laid claim to
personal prowess. Struthas, then, seeing the disorderly advance of the
supports and the paucity of the vanguard, appeared suddenly at the head
of a large body of cavalry, all in orderly array. Thibron and Thersander
were the first to be cut down, and when these had fallen the rest of the
troops were easily turned. A mere chase ensued, in which man after
man was felled to earth, though a remnant contrived to escape into the
friendly cities; still larger numbers owed their safety to their late
discovery of the business on hand. Nor, indeed, was this the first time
the Spartan commander had rushed to the field, without even issuing a
general order. So ends the history of these events.

(18) Al. B.C. 392, al. B.C. 390.

(19) See "Hell." VII. i. 40; "Cyrop." I. iv. 17; III. iii. 23; "Anab."
VI. iii. 3.

B.C. 390. (20) We pass on to the arrival at Lacedaemon of a party of
Rhodian exiles expelled by the popular party. They insisted that it was
not equitable to allow the Athenians to subjugate Rhodes and thus build
up so vast a power. The Lacedaemonians were alive to the fact that the
fate of Rhodes dep