e by
the Eleians, who viewed with a jealous eye the Lacedaemonians at Skillus,
and protested against the peace and convention promoted by Athens after
the battle of Leuktra, because it recognized that place, along with the
townships of Triphylia, as having the right of self-government. Every
year he made a splendid sacrifice, from the tenth of all the fruits of
the property; to which solemnity not only all the Skilluntines, but also
all the neighboring villages, were invited. Booths were erected for the
visitors, to whom the goddess furnished (this is the language of
Xenophon) an ample dinner of barley-meal, wheaten loaves, meat, game,
and sweetmeats; the game being provided by a general hunt, which the
sons of Xenophon conducted, and in which all the neighbors took part if
they chose. The produce of the estate, saving this tithe or tenth and
subject to the obligation of keeping the holy building in repair, was
enjoyed by Xenophon himself. He had a keen relish for both hunting and
horsemanship, and was among the first authors, so far as we know, who
ever made these pursuits, with the management of horses and dogs, the
subject of rational study and description.

Such was the use to which Xenophon applied the tithe voted by the army
at Kerasus to the Ephesian Artemis; the other tithe, voted at the same
time to Apollo, he dedicated at Delphi in the treasure-chamber of the
Athenians, inscribing upon the offering his own name and that of
Proxenus. His residence being only at a distance of a little more than
two miles from the great temple of Olympia,[121] he was enabled to enjoy
society with every variety of Greeks--and to obtain copious information
about Grecian politics, chiefly from philo-Laconian informants, and with
the Lacedaemonian point of view predominant in his own mind; while he had
also leisure for the composition of his various works. The interesting
description which he himself gives of his residence at Skillus implies a
state of things not present and continuing, but past and gone; other
testimonies too, though confused and contradictory, seem to show that
the Lacedaemonian settlement at Skillus lasted no longer than the power
of Lacedaemon was adequate to maintain it. During the misfortunes which
befell that city after the battle of Leuktra (371 B.C.), Xenophon, with
his family and his fellow-settlers, was expelled by the Eleians, and is
then said to have found shelter at Corinth. But as Athens soon came to
b