Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/204

 X82 HISTORY OF GREECE. Epaminondas had intended that it should. In no other part of the line does there appear to have been any serious fighting ; partly through his deliberate scheme of not pushing forward either his centre or his right, partly through the preliminary victory of the Theban cavalry, which probably checked a part of the forward march of the enemy's line, and partly also through the lukewarm adherence, or even suppressed hostility, of the allies marshalled under the command of Kleombrotus. 1 The Phokians and Hera- kleots, zealous in the cause from hatred of Thebes, had quit- ted the line to strike a blow at the retiring baggage and attendants ; while the remaining allies, after mere nominal fighting and little or no loss, retired to the camp as soon as they saw the Spartan right defeated and driven back to it. Moreover, even some Lace- daemonians on the left wing, probably astounded by the lukewarm- ness of those around them, and by the unexpected calamity on their own right, fell back in the same manner. The whole Lace- daemonian force, with the dying king, was thus again assembled and formed behind the entrenchment on the higher ground, where the victorious Thebans did not attempt to molest them.2 But very different were their feelings as they now stood arrayed in the camp, from that exulting boastfulness with which they -had quitted it an hour or two before ; and fearful was the loss when it came to be verified. Of seven hundred Spartans who had marched forth from the camp, only three hundred returned to it. 3 One thousand Lacedaemonians, besides, had been left on the field, even by the admission of Xenophon ; probably the real number was 1 Pausanias (ix, 13, 4 ; compare viii, 6, 1 ) lays great stress upon this indif- ference or even treachery of the allies. Xenophon says quite enough to au- thenticate the reality of the fact (Hellen vi, 4, 15-24) ; see also Cicero De Offic. ii, 7, 26. Polysenus has more than one anecdote respecting the dexterity of Agesi- laus in dealing with fainthearted conduct or desertion on the part of the allies of Sparta (Polysen. ii, 1, 18-20). 3 Xen. Hellen. 1. c. Plutarch (Agesil. c. 28) states a thousand Lacedoc monians to have been slain; Pausanias (ix, 13,4) gives the numbei as more than a thousand ; Diodorus mentions four thousand (xv, 56), which is doubt less above the truth, though the number given by Xenophon may be fairly presumed as somewhat below it. Dionysius of Halikarnassus (Antiq. Roman U, 17) states that seventeen hundred Spartans perished.
 * Xen. Hellen. vi, 4, 13, 14.