Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/372

 35C HISTORY OF GREECE. soldiers, when they tried to rejoin the main body. Whenever the Lacedaemonians attempted to make progress, these circumstances were again repeated, to their great loss and discouragement ; while the peltasts became every moment more confident and vigorous. Some relief was now afforded to the distressed mora by the coming up of their cavalry, which had finished the escort of the Amyklaeans. Had this cavalry been with them at the begin- ning, the result might have been different ; but it was now in- sufficient to repress the animated assaults of the peltasts. More- over, the Lacedaemonian horsemen were at no time very good, nor did they on this occasion venture to push their pursuit to a greater range than the younger hoplites could keep up with them. At length, after much loss in killed and wounded, and great distress to all, the polemarch contrived to get his detach- ment as far as an eminence about a quarter of a mile from the sea and about two miles from Lechaeum. Here, while Iphi- krates still continued to harass them with his peltasts, Kalliaa also was marching up with his hoplites to charge them hand to hand, when the Lacedaemonians, enfeebled in numbers, ex- hausted in strength, and too much dispirited for close fight with a new enemy, broke and fled in all directions. Some took the road to Lechaeum, which place a few of them reached, along with the cavalry ; the rest ran towards the sea at the nearest point, and observing that some of their friends were rowing in boats from Lechaeum along the shore to rescue them, threw themselves into the sea, to wade or swim towards this new succor. But the active peltasts, irresistible in the pursuit of broken hoplites, put the last hand to the destruction of the unfortunate mora. Out of its full mus- ter of six hundred, a very small proportion survived to reenter Lechaeum. 1 1 Xen. Hellen. ir, 5, 17. Xenophon affirms the number of slain to have been about two hundred nd fifty EV Ku.aaiq 6e ratf puxaif KCLI ry v-/y airidavov nepl irevTr/Kovra xai StaKoaiovf. But he had before distinctly stated that the whole mora marching back to Lechaeum under the polemarch, was six hundred in num- ber 6 /ucv iroXefjLapxo^ oi>v rolf 6rr7iiratf, ovoiv eif ea/totf, air!jei nuTiiv ttrl rb A.e%aiov (iv. 5, 12). And it is plain, from several different expres- sions, that all of them were slain, excepting a very few survivors. I think it certain, therefore, that one or other of these two numbers is er