This coalition, after repulsing the barbarian, soon afterwards split
into two sections, which included the Hellenes who had revolted from
the King, as well as those who had aided him in the war. At the end of
the one stood Athens, at the head of the other Lacedaemon, one the
first naval, the other the first military power in Hellas. For a short
time the league held together, till the Lacedaemonians and Athenians
quarrelled and made war upon each other with their allies, a duel into
which all the Hellenes sooner or later were drawn, though some might
at first remain neutral. So that the whole period from the Median
war to this, with some peaceful intervals, was spent by each power
in war, either with its rival, or with its own revolted allies, and
consequently afforded them constant practice in military matters,
and that experience which is learnt in the school of danger.

The policy of Lacedaemon was not to exact tribute from her allies,
but merely to secure their subservience to her interests by
establishing oligarchies among them; Athens, on the contrary, had by
degrees deprived hers of their ships, and imposed instead
contributions in money on all except Chios and Lesbos. Both found
their resources for this war separately to exceed the sum of their
strength when the alliance flourished intact.

Having now given the result of my inquiries into early times, I
grant that there will be a difficulty in believing every particular
detail. The way that most men deal with traditions, even traditions of
their own country, is to receive them all alike as they are delivered,
without applying any critical test whatever. The general Athenian
public fancy that Hipparchus was tyrant when he fell by the hands of
Harmodius and Aristogiton, not knowing that Hippias, the eldest of the
sons of Pisistratus, was really supreme, and that Hipparchus and