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Unfortunately, experience showed that the circumstances in which imperialism was a political necessity recurred constantly. After the fall of Athens in 404 B.C., a defensive war against the barbarians—the Macedonians in Thessaly, the Persians in Ionia—served as a justification to Sparta in employing force to maintain the hegemony which she had won. But in 387 B.C. the peace known as the "King's Peace," or the "Peace of Antalcidas," was concluded with Persia, whereupon it became impossible to use any longer the national cause as even a pretext for tyranny. The hegemony, however, was not abandoned. It had to be maintained, it was alleged, to keep the other cities free, and to this end Persia lent aid to Sparta and Thebes successively. If an empire could only be prevented by an empire, and national recreancy to boot, the times were surely out of joint. Such an issue was the reductio ad absurdum of the system of hegemonies, as both reformers and statesmen in Greece came speedily to realize.