The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

PERIOD IV. CIRC. B.C. 456 446.
The disorganization of the ancient Boeotian confederacy
which was the result of the victory of the Greeks over the
Persians, and of the consequent lowering of the influence
of Thebes, lasted about twenty years (circ. B.C. 479 459),
in Boeotia was
during which the Athenian ascendency
continually on the increase.
At length, however, Sparta awoke to the consciousness
that the time was come to take active steps to reinstate
Thebes in her old position as the effective ruler of all
Bceotia, in order to prevent the various autonomous com-
munities in Central Greece from joining the Athenian
alliance. The Lacedaemonians accordingly sent a force
into Bceotia, nominally to chastise the Phocians for an
aggression upon the territory of the Dorians, but in
reality to compel
the Boeotian cities to submit to the
headship of Thebes. This result they brought about by
rebuilding the fortifications of Thebes on a larger scale,
and by establishing oligarchical governments in all the
Boeotian towns.
At first Sparta was entirely successful, the Athenians,
who marched across their borders to meet them, being
vanquished at the battle of Tanagra (B.C. 457), but in the
following year Athens not only retrieved on the field of
Oenophyta, near Tanagra, all she had lost, but became
absolute mistress, not merely of Boeotia, but of all Central
Greece. The Spartan policy was thus at once reversed,
VOL. I. THIRD SERIES. D D