At the close of the year Pythias was archon at Athens, and at Rome six military tribunes with consular power were elected, Titus Quinctius, Lucius Servilius, Lucius Julius, Aquilius, Lucius Lucretius, and Servius Sulpicius; and in this year the Eleians celebrated the hundredth Olympiad, at which Dionysodorus of Tarentum won the stadium race. [2] During their term of office Agesipolis, king of the Lacedaemonians, died of illness2 after a reign of fourteen years; Cleombrotus his brother succeeded to the throne and reigned for nine years.3 The Lacedaemonians appointed Polybiadas general and sent him to the war against the Olynthians. [3] He took over the forces, and, prosecuting the war vigorously and with able generalship, was often superior. With ever-increasing success, after several victories, he reduced the Olynthians to a state of siege. In the end he thoroughly cowed his enemies and forced them to become subjects of the Lacedaemonians.4 With the enrolment of the Olynthians in the Spartan alliance many other states likewise were eager to enlist under the Lacedaemonian standard. As a result the Lacedaemonians at this particular juncture reached their greatest power and won the overlordship of Greece on both land and sea.5 [4] For the Thebans were secured by a garrison; the Corinthians and the Argives were safely humbled as a result of the previous wars; the Athenians, because of their policy of occupying with colonists the lands of those whom they subdued,6 had a bad reputation with the Greeks; the Lacedaemonians, however, had given their constant attention to securing a large population7 and practice in the use of arms, and so were become an object of terror to all because of the strength of their following. [5] Consequently the greatest rulers of that time, the Persian King and Dionysius8 the tyrant of Sicily, paid court to the Spartan overlordship and sought alliance with them.
