History of the Peloponnesian War

But finally the tyrants, not only of Athens but also of the rest of Hellas (which, for a long time before Athens, had been dominated by tyrants)-at least most of them and the last that ever ruled, if we except tlose in Sicily—were put down by the Lacedaemonians. For although Lacedaemon, after the settlement there of the Dorians who now inhabit it, was, for the longest period of all the places of which we know, in a state of sedition, still it obtained good laws at an earlier time than any other land, and has always been free from tyrants; for the period during which the Lacedaemonians have been enjoying the same constitution[*](The legislation of Lycurgus, thus placed by Thucydides at four hundred years or more before 404 B.C., would be about 804 B. C. (Eratosthenes gives 884).) covers about four hundred years or a little more down to the end of the Peloponnesian war. And it is for this reason that they became powerful and regulated the affairs of other states as well. Not many years after the overthrow of the tyrants in Hellas by the Lacedaemonians the battle of Marathon[*](490 B.C.) was fought between the Athenians and the Persians;

and ten years after that the Barbarian came again with his great host against Hellas to enslave it. In the face of the great danger that threatened, the Lacedaemonians, because they were the most powerful, assumed the leadership of the Hellenes that joined in the war; and the Athenians, when the Persians came on, resolved to abandon their city, and packing up their goods embarked on their ships, and so became sailors. By a common effort the Barbarian was repelled; but not long afterwards the other Hellenes, both those who had revolted from the King and those who had joined the first confederacy against him, parted company and aligned themselves with either the Athenians or the Lacedaemonians; for these states had shown themselves the most powerful, the one strong by land and the other on the sea.

The defensive alliance lasted only a little while; then the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians quarrelled and, with their respective allies, made war upon one another, and any of the rest of the Hellenes, if they chanced to be at variance, from now on resorted to one or the other. So that from the Persian invasion continually, to this present war, making peace at one time, at another time fighting with each other or with their own revolted allies, these two states prepared themselves well in matters of war, and became more experienced, taking their training amid actual dangers.