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Σωσικλέης. There seems no doubt that Corinth again (cf. ch. 75) led the opposition to the Spartan proposal, since she needed an independent Athens as a counterweight to Aegina, and for the maintenance of her own freedom. On her southern border she was already hemmed in by cities subservient to Sparta; were Athens now to become a submissive subject of Lacedaemon, Corinthian liberty and even Corinthian commerce would be menaced. Sosicles may be an historical person, like the seven Persian conspirators (iii. 80 f.), but his speech is incredibly inapt to the occasion, and is no more historical than the political essays put in their mouths. The one good point is the inconsistency of Sparta's hostility to tyranny at home and support of a tyrant abroad, and this might have been improved by recalling the Spartan suppression of tyrants (cf. Appendix XVI, § 10). Of the stories told, that of Cypselus' childhood is not in point, since it does not illustrate the evils of tyranny, nor is there any attempt to show that a tyranny at Athens would injure Sparta or her allies. H., even in his set speeches, does not cease to be a story-teller, using the narrative style (εἰρομένη λέξις) suitable to the matter; he cannot, like Thucydides, give us the weighty political argument demanded by the crisis. We may further note his light-hearted assurance that he gives the actual words spoken (τάδε) in contrast with the more cautious phrases of Thucydides (τοιαῦτα, τοιάδε).

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