Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/89

71 SPARTAN INVASION OF AUGOS. 71 had the advantage, yet they still suffered serious hardship, and pressed their case forcibly on the sympathy of Sparta. Thus importuno^. and mortified as well as alarmed by the increasing defection or ci.-ldneas wldvh tlr;y new experienced throughout Peloponnesus, the Lacedas&ooBUQfl determined during the course of the ensuing summer to put forth their strength vigorously, and win back their lost ground. 1 Towards the month of Juno (B.C. 418) they marched with their full force, freemen as well as Hdots, under king Agis, against Argos. The Tegeans and other Arcadian allies joined them on the march, while their oilier allies near the Isthmus, Boeotians. Mcgarians, Corinthians, Sikyonians, Phliasians, etc., were directed to assemble at Phlius. The number of these latter allies were very considerable, for we her.r of five thousand Boeo- tian hoplites, and two thousand Corinthian : the Boeotians had with them also five thousand light-armed, five hundred horsemen, and five hundred foot-soldiers, who ran alongside of the horse- men. The numbers of the rest, or of Spartans themselves, we do not know ; nor probably did Thucydides himself know : for we find him remarking elsewhere the impenetrable concealment of the Lacedaemonians on all public affairs, in reference to the numbers at the subsequent battle of Mantineia. Such muster of the Lacedaemonian alliance was no secret to the Argeians, who marching first to Mantineia, and there taking up the force of that city as well as three thousand Eleian hoplites who came to join them, met the Lacedaemonians in their march at Methydrium in Arcadia. The two armies being posted on opposite hills, the Argeians had resolved to attack Agis the next day, so as to prevent him from joining his allies at Phlius. But he eluded this separate encounter by decamping in the night, reached Phlius, and operated his junction in safety. We do not hear that there was in the Laeedtemonian army any commander of lochus, who, copying the unreasonable punctilio of Amompharetus before the battle of Platsea, refused to obey the order of retreat before the enemj-, io the imminent risk of the whole army. And the fact, that no similar incident occurred now, may be held to prove thai 1 Thucyd. v, 57.