In Corinth certain men who favoured a democracy, banding together while contests were being held in the theatre, instituted a slaughter and filled the city with civil strife; and when the Argives gave them their support in their venture, they put to the sword one hundred and twenty of the citizens and drove five hundred into exile. [2] While the Lacedaemonians were making preparations to restore the exiles and gathering an army, the Athenians and Boeotians came to the aid of the murderers, in order that they might secure the adhesion of the city. [3] The exiles, together with the Lacedaemonians and their allies, attacked Lechaeum1 and the dock-yard by night and seized them by storm; and on the next day, when the troops of the city, which Iphicrates commanded, came out against them, a battle followed in which the Lacedaemonians were victorious and slew no small number of their opponents. [4] After this the Boeotians and Athenians, and with them the Argives and Corinthians, came with all their forces to Lechaeum, and at the outset they laid siege to the place and forced their way into the corridor between the walls; but afterward the Lacedaemonians and the exiles put up a brilliant fight and forced out the Boeotians and all who were with them. They then, having lost about a thousand soldiers, returned to the city. [5] And since the Isthmian Games were now at hand, there was a quarrel over who should conduct them. After much contention the Lacedaemonians had their way and saw to it that the exiles conducted the festival. [6] Since the severe fighting in the war took place for the most part about Corinth, it was called the Corinthian War, and it continued for eight years.
