220 HISTORICAL TALES.

cation, and death. Supported by a Spartan garrison,
they tyrannized at their own cruel will, murdering,
confiscating, exiling, until they converted Athens
into a prototype of Paris during the French Revo-
lution.

At length the saturnalia of crime came to an end.
Even the enemies of Athens began to pity her sad
state. Those who had been exiled by these new
tyrants returned to Attica, and war between them
and The Thirty began. In the end Sparta withdrew
her support from the tyrants, those of them who
had not perished fied, and after nearly a year of
terrible anarchy the democracy of Athens was re-
stored, and peace once more spread its wings over
that frightfully afflicted city.

We may conclude this tale with an episode that
took place eleven years after the Long Walls had
fallen. As they had gone down to music, they rose
to music again. In these eleven years despotic
Sparta had lost many of her allies, and the Persians,
who had become friends of Athens, now lent a fleet
and supplied money to aid in rebuilding the walls.
Some even of those who had danced for joy when
the walls went down now gave their cheerful aid to
raise them up again, so greatly had Spartan tyranny
changed the tide of feeling. The completion of the
walls was celebrated by a splendid sacrifice and fes-
tival banquet, and joy came back to Athens again.
A new era had begun for the city, not one of do-
minion and empire, but one marked by some share
of her old dignity and importance in Greece.