TERPSICHORE. 201

among them, us and our king. They are endeavour­
ing, we hear, to make themselves more and more for­
midable : this their neighbours the Boeotians and Chal-
cidians have already experienced, as will others also
who may happen to offend them. To atone for our
past errors and neglect, we now profess ourselves
ready to assist you in chastising them: for this rea­
son, we have sent for Hippias, and assembled you;
intending, by the joint operations of one united army,
to restore him to Athens, and to that dignity of which
we formerly deprived him."

XCII. These sentiments of the Spartans were ap­
proved by very few of the confederates. After a long
interval of silence, Sosicles of Corinth made this re­
ply : " We may henceforth certainly expect to see the
heavens take place of the earth, the earth that of the
heavens; to see mankind existing in the waters, and
the scaly tribe on earth, since you, O Lacedaemonians,
meditate the subversion of free and equal govern­
ments, and the establishment of arbitrary power; than
which surely nothing can be more unjust in itself, or
more destructive in its effects. If you consider tyranny
with so favourable an eye, before you think of intro­
ducing it elsewhere, show us the example, and sub­
mit first to a tyrant yourselves: at present, you are
not only without a tyrant, but it should seem, that in
Sparta, nothing can be guarded against with more
vigilant anxiety : why then wish to involve your con­
federates in what to you appears so great a calamity;
a calamity which like us if you had known, experi­
ence would doubtless have prompted a more sagacious
counsel ? The government of Corinth was formerly
in the hands of a few; they who were called the Bac-
chiadae had the administration of affairs. To cement
and confirm their authority, they were careful to con­
tract no marriages but among themselves. One of
these, whose name was Amphion, had a daughter
called Labda, who was lame. As none of the Bac-
chiadse were willing to marry her, they united her to
Eetion, son of Echerates, who, though of the low tribe
of Petra, was in his origin one of the Lapithse, de­
scended from Caeneus. As he had no children by this