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156 ANCIENT GREECE.[CHAP. xir.became of decisive influence.After that battle, no considerable one was fought by land ;no large Grecian armywas again brought together. By maintaining the ascendency in the ^Egean Sea, Greece was protected.The petty wars which, after the victories over the Persians, were carried on between the several states, could notcontribute much to the advancement of the art.They werenothing but single expeditions, decided by single insignificant engagements.No such advancement could therefore be expected tillthe time of the Peloponnesian war, which involved allGreece. But this war soon came to be carried on more bysea than by land and the; military operations consistedprincipally in sieges.No single great battle was fought onland duringits whole course ;besides naval science, therefore, the art of besieging may have made some progress,especially in the expedition against Syracuse. But as thisexpedition terminated in the total destruction of the army,it could have no abiding consequences.Till the age of Epaminondas, Sparta and Athens are theonly states which attract our attention. In Sparta, wherethe militia resembled a standing army,it would seem thatthe art of war might have made advances. But two causesprevented. The one was the obstinate attachment to ancient usage, which rendered changes and improvementsdifficult. The other was the remarkable scarcity of greatcommanders, a scarcity to have been least expected in awarlike state ;but which may have proceeded from the former cause. If we possessed a history of Pausanias, writtenby himself, it would perhaps show us how his talents, limited in their exercise by the regulations of his native city,proved ruinous to himself, as in the case of the GermanWallenstein, by making him a traitor. Leonidas has ouradmiration for his greatness as a man, not as a general ;andthe fiery Brasidas, well fitted to be the hero of a revolutionary war, like the Peloponnesian, fell in the very beginning1of his career, and no worthy successors appearedtillLysanderand Agesilaus. And of the first of these two, it is1Thucyd. v. 10. When we read his proclamation, addressed to the Acanthians,Thucyd. iv. 85, we believe ourselves brought down to the vears 1793and 1794.