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The Athenian people heard the ambassadors through to the end and voted1 to dispatch immediately as large a force as possible for the liberation of Thebes, thus repaying their obligation for the former service and at the same time moved by a desire to win the Boeotians to their side and to have in them a powerful partner in the contest against the superiority of the Lacedaemonians. For the Boeotian was reputed to be inferior to none of the Greek nations in the number of its men and in military valour.

1 Only Deinarchus (Din. Dem. 39) mentions a vote of the Athenians. Most modern historians (Beloch, Griechische Geschichte (2), 3.1.146, Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums, 5.924, notes, and Cary, Cambridge Ancient History, 6.67) accept the account in Xen. Hell. 5.4.19, which insists on the private nature of the assistance afforded Thebes by Athens and the punishment by the people of the two generals who were rash enough to give that assistance, one of whom was executed and the other exiled. Glotz in his Hist. gr., though generally inclined to give more weight to Diodorus, here speaks of "volontaires athéniens." In the same vein von Stern, Gesch. d. spartan. u. theban. Hegemonie, 44 ff. Xenophons Hellenika und die boiotische Geschichtsüberlieferung. For the contrary view see E. Fabricius, "Die Befreiung Thebens" in Rheinisches Museum 48 (1893), 448 ff., and W. Judeich, "Athen und Theben vom Königsfrieden bis zur Schlacht bei Leuktra" in Rheinisches Museum 76 (1927), 171 ff. Cp. also A. O. Prickard, The Return of the Theban Exiles (379/8 B.C.)

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