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προεδρίη: seats of honour at public games, and ἀτελείη, exemption from the tax on foreigners, were often granted as marks of honour to benefactors; cf. i. 54. 2; Hicks 89, 126, 134, 165. Here they are regarded as such distinctive marks of friendship that H. rather ungrammatically attaches to them the crowning proof of Sparta's favour, abstention from wasting the land of Decelea in the Peloponnesian war.

ἐς τὸν πόλεμον. H. elsewhere (vii. 137. 1) refers in similar terms to the Peloponnesian war, implying it was going on while he was writing. The sparing of Decelea no doubt refers to the five early invasions (431-425 B. C.); in 431 at least Archidamus wasted the country surrounding it; cf. Thuc. ii. 23. H. did not live to see Decelea occupied by Agis (413 B. C.); cf. Introd. § 8 f.

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