A still harder fate was
reserved for the hapless Dorian islanders in the next generation.
In the following nine years [Footnote: B.C. 456-447.] the power of
Athens reached its greatest height, and for a moment it seemed as if
she were destined to extend her empire over the whole mainland of
Greece. By the victory of Oenophyta, gained over the Boeotians just
before the reduction of Aegina, Athens became mistress of all the
central provinces of the Greek peninsula, from the pass of Thermopylae
to the gulf of Corinth. The alliance of Megara, lately united by long
walls to its harbour of Nisaea, secured her from invasion on the side
of Peloponnesus. The great island of Euboea, with its rich pastures
and fruitful corn lands, had, since the Persian War, become an
Athenian estate, and was jealously guarded as one of her most valuable
possessions; and on the sea, from the eastern corner of the Euxine to
the strait of Gibraltar, there was none to dispute her sway.
But this rapid ascent was followed by no less speedy a fall, and one
act of indiscretion stripped the Athenians of all the advantages which
they had acquired on the mainland of Greece. In every city of Greece
there were always two parties, the wealthy and noble, called
oligarchs, and the demos, or commons; and according as Spartan or
Athenian influence was in the ascendant the balance of power in each
city wavered between the nobles and the people, the Athenians
favouring the Many, the Spartans the Few.
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