Theban and Boeotian forces, then in alliance with Sparta; whereby
the authority and influence of Sparta were again confined to
the Peloponnesus.

The Athenians were now masters of Greece, from the Gulf of Corinth
to the Pass of Thermopylae, and in the following year they sent an
expedition round the Peloponnesus, which captured, among other
cities, Naupactus, on the Corinthian Gulf. The third and last
Messenian war had just been concluded by the surrender of Ithome,
on terms which permitted the Messenians and their families to
retire from the Peloponnesus, and they joined the colony which
Athens planted at Naupactus. But the successes of Athens in Greece
were counterbalanced, in the same year, by reverses in Egypt, where
the Athenians were fighting Persia in aid of In'arus, a Libyan
prince. These, with some other minor disasters, and the state of
bitter feeling that existed between the two parties at Athens,
induced Pericles to recall Cimon from exile and put him in
command of an expedition against Cyprus and Egypt. In 449, however,
Cimon was taken ill, and he died in the harbor of Ci'tium, to which
place he was laying siege.

Before the death of Cimon, and through his intervention, a five
years' truce had been concluded with Sparta, and soon after his
death peace was made with Persia. From this time the empire of
Athens began to decline. In the year 447 B.C. a revolt in Boeotia
resulted in the overthrow of Athenian supremacy there, while the
expulsion of the Athenians from Pho'cis and Lo'cris, and the
revolt of Euboea and Megara, followed soon after. The revolt of
Euboea was soon quelled, but this was the only success that Athens
achieved. Meanwhile a Spartan army invaded Attica and marched to