Sparta to control the city until 378 BC, when a group of Thebans expelled the Spartans and reclaimed the city. This later led to the Boeotian War from 378–372 BC. Book 6 describes events during the years 374–370 BC. The Athenian general Iphicrates stealthily travels around the Peloponnesus. The Battle of Leuctra results in a major loss for Sparta against Thebes, ending the Boeotian War and Spartan hegemony in Greece, although Sparta would remain influential over the next decade. Theban hegemony begins under the leadership of Theban general Epaminondas. Book 7 narrates the years 370–362 BC. During this period Thebes was the ascendant power in Greece. The old power structures fluctuated as new ones came into being. There was briefly an alliance between Athens and Sparta against Thebes. Sparta faced increasing harassment from internal rebellions and outside resistance. The Spartan homeland saw the first invasion in centuries. The Theban hegemony ended in 362 BC with the second battle of Mantinea. Other works titled Hellenica Among competing works under this title, now lost, two stand out, that written by Ephorus of Cyme and that by Theopompus of Chios. Ephorus attempted a universal history, and though he attempted to set apart history from myth, he began his work with the legendary "Return of the sons of Heracles", which modern readers understand as wholly mythic aitia. As a pupil of the rhetorician Isocrates he was not above embroidering his narrative with believable circumstantial detail. Oswyn Murray remarked, "His style and completeness, unfortunately, made him rather popular, but at least he stands out as one who had thought about the purposes that history should serve, and got them wrong." The Hellenica of Theopompus, another pupil of Isocrates, was a continuation of Thucydides. There is evidence that Anaximenes of Lampsacus wrote a Hellenica. Yet another, fragmentary Hellenica found in papyrus at Oxyrhynchus, is known as Hellenica Oxyrhynchia; it covered events from 411 to the year of the Battle of Cnidus, 395/4 BC. It has been tentatively attributed to several historians. See also Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 28 Notes External links Project Gutenberg – Hellenica by Xenophon Works by Xenophon Historiography of Greece 4th-century BC history books