Lacedaemonians

And they begged them not to build their walls, but rather to join them in throwing down those of the cities out of the Peloponnese;

They were not content to live in peace, but, confident that they were stronger than the Arcadians, asked the oracle at Delphi about gaining all the Arcadian land.

It is said that, when the Lacedaemonians were trying to overreach him, and offered any assurance he was willing to accept, Philocrates replied that the only possible assurance would be that they should satisfy him that, if they had a mind to injure him, they would not have the power;

But I wish to tell you a deed of the Lacedaemonians, how they dealt with a citharode then admired among the Greeks.

And when the Thebans made a counter-invasion into Phocis and laid waste the land, the Phocians straightway sent ambassadors to Lacedaemon and asked the Lacedaemonians to aid them, setting forth that they had not begun war, but had gone against the Locrians in self-defence.

but they want it to be generally supposed that they are co-operating with each state to recover the territory that it claims, so that when they march against Messene on their own account, all the others will join heartily in the expedition, or else will put themselves in the wrong by making no adequate return for the support they have enjoyed in regaining what each state claimed as its own.

” In the same manner, when the Thebans had offered the most equitable terms to the Lacedaemonians, who still rose higher in their demands, Aristides says, that the justice of the cause changed sides and passed from the Lacedaemonians to the Thebans.

The people of Chios, of Mytilen, and of Byzantium remained loyal, but the Thebans, although they dwelt in a city of such importance, did not have the fortitude even to remain neutral, but were guilty of such cowardice and baseness as to give their solemn oath to join the Lacedaemonians in attacking you, the saviors of their city.