emarkable change in the state of affairs. Athens has fallen from her
high estate. Sparta is now the lord and master of the Grecian world. And
a harsh master has she proved, with her controlling agents in every
city, her voice the arbiter in all political concerns.

Thebes is now the friend of Athens and the foe of Sparta, the chief
among those cities which oppose the new order of things. Yet Thebes in
379 B.C. lies hard and fast within the Spartan clutch. How she got there
is now for us to tell.

It was an act of treason, some three years before, that handed this city
over to the tender mercies of her old ally, her present foe. There was a
party in Thebes favorable to Sparta, at whose head was a man named
Leontiades. And at this time Sparta was at war with Olynthus, a city far
to the north. One Spartan army had marched to Olynthus. Another, led by
a general named Phoebidas, was on its march thither, and had halted
for a period of rest near the gymnasium, a short distance outside the
walls of Thebes. There is good reason to believe that Phoebidas well
knew what Leontiades designed, and was quite ready to play his part in
the treacherous scheme.

It was the day of the Thesmophoria, a religious festival celebrated by
women only, no men being admitted. The Cadmeia, or citadel, had been
given to their use, and was now occupied by women alone. It was a warm
summer's day. The heat of noon had driven the people from the streets.
The Senate of the city was in session in the portico of the agora, or
forum, but their deliberations were drowsily conducted and the whole
city seemed taking a noontide siesta.

Phoebidas chose this warm noontide to put his army in march again,
rounding the walls of Thebes. As the van passed the gates Leontiades,
who had stolen away from the Senate and hastened on horseback through
the deserted streets, rode up to the Spartan commander, and bade him
turn and march inward through the gate which lay invitingly open before
him. Through the deserted streets Phoebidas and his men rapidly made
their way, following the traitor Theban, to the gates of the Cadmeia,
which, like those of the town, were thrown open to his order as
polemarch, or war governor; and the Spartans, pouring in, soon were
masters not only of the citadel, but of the wives and daughters of the
leading Theban citizens as well.

The news got abroad only when it was too late to remedy the treacherous
act. The Senate heard with consternatio