Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/205

 SYRACUSAN SQUADRON. 183 even larger. Apart from this, the death of Klecmbrotus was of itself an event impressive to every one, the like of which had never occurred since the fatal day of Thermopylae. But this was not all. The allies who stood alongside of them in arms were now altered men. All were sick of their cause, and averse to farther exertion ; some scarcely concealed a positive satisfaction at the defeat. And when the surviving polemarchs, now com- manders, took counsel with the principal officers as to the steps proper in the emergency, there were a few, but very few, Spartans who pressed for renewal of the battle, and for recovering by force their slain brethren in the field, or perishing in the attempt. All the rest felt like beaten men ; so that the polemarchs, giving effect to the general sentiment, sent a herald to solicit the regular truce for burial of their dead. This the Thebans granted, after erecting their own trophy. 1 But Epaminondas, aware that the Spartans would practise every stratagem to conceal the magnitude of their losses, coupled the grant with a condition that the allies should bury their dead first. It was found that the allies had scarce any dead to pick up, and that nearly every slain warrior on the field was a Lacedaemonian. 2 And thus the Theban general, while he placed the loss beyond possibility of concealment, pro- claimed at the same time such public evidence of Spartan courage, as to rescue the misfortune of Leuktra from ah 1 aggravation on the score of dishonor. What the Theban loss was, Xenophon does not tell us. Pausanias states it at forty-seven men, 3 Diodorus at three hundred. The former number is preposterously small, and even the latter is doubtless under the truth ; for a victory in close fight, over soldiers like the Spartans, must have been dearly pur- chased. Though the bodies of the Spartans were given up to burial, their arms were retained ; and the shields of the principal officers were seen by the traveller Pausanias at Thebes five hundred years afterwards. 4 Twenty days only had elapsed, from the time when Epaminon das quitted Sparta after Thebes had been excluded from the general peace, to the day when he stood victorious on the field of 1 Xen. Hellen. vi 4, 15. 2 Pausan. ix, 13, 4 ; Plutarch, Apotheg. Reg. p. 193 B. ; Cicero, de offi- tiis, ii, 7.
 * Pausan. ix, 13, 4 ; Diodor. XT, 55. 4 Pausan. ix, 16, 3