Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/338

320 tending ; but the final event which placed it beyond dispute, and which humbled for the time her ancient and only rival—Argo —is now to be noticed.

It was about three or four years before the arrival of these Persian heralds in Greece, and nearly at the time when Miletus was besieged by the Persian generals, that a war broke out be- tween Sparta and Argos, —on what grounds Herodotus does not inform us. Kleomenes, encouraged by a promise of the oracle that he should take Argos, led the Lacedaemonian troops to the banks of the Erasinus, the border river of the Argeian ter- ritory. But the sacrifices, without which no river could be crossed, were so unfavorable, that he altered his course, extorted some vessels from Ægina and Sikyon, and carried his troops by sea to Nauplia, the seaport belonging to Argos, and to the terri- tory of Tiryns. The Argeians having marched their forces down to resist him, the two armies joined battle at Sêpeia, near Tiryns : Kleomenes, by a piece of simplicity on the part of his enemies, which we find it difficult to credit in Hen>lotus, was enabled to attack them unprepared, and obtained a decisive vic- tory. For the Argeians, it is stated, were so afraid of being overreached by stratagem, in the post which their army occupied over against the enemy, that they listened for the commands pro- claimed aloud by the Lacedaemonian herald, and performed with their own army the same order which they thus heard given.