Xenophon wrote the Hellenica, a history of Greece after Athens lost the long war with Sparta. This is Book 4. In Book 3, Sparta inherited the Aegean, Agesilaus carried the fight into Asia against Persian governors, and Thebes, Corinth, Argos, and a recovering Athens started the Corinthian War; Lysander died, and Agesilaus was called home.

Sparta’s postwar hold is already cracking. Peisander, Sparta’s admiral, dies at Cnidus on the Turkish coast. Conon, the Athenian who escaped the last sea disaster of the old war, and Pharnabazus, a Persian satrap — a provincial governor — burn the fleet Lysander built. Agesilaus, the lame Spartan king, comes home the long way from Asia and fights at Coronea against men he once drilled. At Nemea the Spartan line still wins. Then Iphicrates, an Athenian, and his peltasts — light troops with javelins — cut a Spartan mora, a regiment, to pieces near Corinth. The Isthmus fills with walls and counter-walls. Pharnabazus walks in the Piraeus, Athens’ harbor. Conon rebuilds the Long Walls with Persian gold. Agesilaus says the King of Persia is beating him with ten thousand archers: darics, gold coins, in Greek pockets.