2. Λακεδαιμονίων...ἀρχόν- των: after the Peloponnesian war, Lysander established in most of the conquered towns, and even in some which were previously friendly to Sparta, a Spartan governor (ἁρμοστής) with a military force (φρουρά), and a board of ten citizens of the subject state (δεκαδαρχία), who were partizans of Sparta. See Plutarch, Lysand. 13, and Grote IX. 255.—τὰ κύκλῳ τῆς Ἀττικῆς: more rhetorical than τὰ περὶ τὴν Ἀττικήν, κύκλῳ having the adverbial sense of around. See IV. 4.5, εἴχομεν πάντα τὸν τόπον οἰκεῖον κύκλῳ, and XIX. 155, ἐπορεύοντο κύκλῳ, they travelled round.
4, 5. Εὔβοιαν...Αἴγιναν: Euboea and Megara had been in the hands of the Spartans before the end of the Peloponnesian war. Aegina, which Athens had settled with her own people in 431, after expelling the native population, was restored to its former owners (so far as this was possible) by Lysander in 405, as he was on his way to attack Athens (Thuc. II. 27; Xen. Hell. II. 2, 9). Boeotia as a whole was nominally allied with Sparta; but Thebes and other towns became disgusted with Sparta's tyrannical conduct soon after the end of the war, and though Thebes had been the greatest enemy of Athens when the peace was made, she harboured Thrasybulus and his fellow exiles before they attacked the Thirty in 403. This disaffection ended in the Boeotian war in 395, in which Athens aided Thebes; in the battle of Haliartus the allies gained a doubtful victory over Sparta, which was made decisive by the death of Lysander on the field. (See Grote IX. 409.) The invasion of Boeotia by Lysander and his Spartan army justifies τὴν Βοιωτίαν ἅπασαν from the Athenian point of view.
5. Κέων, τὰς ἄλλας νήσους, i.e. Ceos and the adjacent islands, Tenos, Andros, Cythnus, Melos, etc. Melos is mentioned as restored to its old inhabitants by Lysander (Plut. Lys. 14). The emendation Κέων, τὰς ἄλλας νήσους for Κλεωνὰς, ἄλλας νήσους (Σ) removes the difficulty caused by the mention (for no apparent reason) of Cleonae, a town between Corinth and Argos, under τὰ κύκλῳ τῆς Ἀττικῆς.—οὐ ναῦς οὐ τείχη τότε κτησαμένης: Athens was required by Sparta to demolish her Long Walls and the walls of the Piraeus, not those of the ἄστυ; and she was allowed to keep twelve war-ships: see Xen. Hell. II. 2, 20. Here τότε κτησαμένης (not κεκτημένης) means that she had not yet acquired any ships or walls beyond what were left her at the end of the war.
6. εἰς Ἁλίαρτον: see note on ll. 4, 5.
7. οὐ πολλαῖς ἡμέραις: according to the accepted chronology, the battle of Haliartus was in the autumn of 395 B.C., and that of Corinth in the summer of 394, in the year of Eubulides. The Corinthian war was the result of a combination of Athenians, Corinthians, Boeotians, Euboeans, Argives, and others against Sparta. In the battle of Corinth, the Spartans were victorious. See Grote IX. 426—429. The beautiful monument, representing a young warrior on horseback, now standing near the Dipylon gate of Athens, was erected in honour of Dexileos, one of the Athenian horsemen slain in this battle. The inscription is:
ἐγένετο ἐπὶ Τεισάνδρου ἄρχοντος, ἀπέθανε ἐπ᾽ Εὐβουλίδου ἐγ Κορίνθῳ τῶν πέντε ἱππέων.
8. πόλλ᾽ ἂν ἐχόντων (πόλλ᾽ ἂν εἶχον), i.e. they might have done so, potuissent.
10. Δεκελεικὸν πόλεμον, a name often given to the last years of the Peloponnesian war (413—404 B.C.) when the Spartans held a fort at Decelea in Attica.