Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/206

 184 HISTORY OF GREECE. Leuktra. 1 The event came like a thunderclap upon every ore in Greece, upon victors as well as vanquished, upon allies and neutrals, near and distant, alike. The general expectation had been that Thebes would he speedily overthrown and dismantled ; instead of which, not only she had escaped, but had inflicted a crushing blow on the military majesty of Sparta. It is in vain that Xenophon, whose account of the battle is obscure, partial, and imprinted with that chagrin which the event occasioned to him, 2 ascribes the defeat to untoward accidents, 3 or to the rash- ness and convivial carelessness of Kleombrotus ; upon whose generalship Agesilaus and his party at Sparta did not scruple to cast ungenerous reproach, 4 while others faintly exculpated him by Baying that he had fought contrary to his better judgment, under 1 This is an important date, preserved by Plutarch (Agesil. c. 28). The congress was broken up at Sparta on the fourteenth of the Attic month Skir- rophorion (June), the last month of the year of the Athenian archon Alkis- thenes ; the battle was fought on the fifth of the Attic month of Hekatom- bseon, the first month of the next Attic year, of the archon Phrasikleides. about the beginning of July. 8 Diodorns differs from Xenophon on one important matter connected with the battle ; affirming that Archidamus son of Agesilaus was present and fought, together with various other circumstances, which I shall discuss presently, in a future note. I follow Xenophon. ru.va.vna ytyvero, rolq 6e (to the Thebans) TTUVTO. Kal vnb TTJ<; rv^Jif Karup- dovro. 4 Isokrates, in the Oration vi, called Archidamus (composed about five years after the battle, as if to be spoken by Archidamus son of Agesilaus), puta this statement distinctly into the mouth of Archidamus pxP l P^ v ravnjal rijt; jj/UKpae tiedvarvxTixevat. doKoiipev kv rfj pixy ry irpbf Qrj(3ai.ov(, Kal rolf fiev aufzaai KpaTrj-ftr/vai dia rdv OVK 6p#wf ijy you/ue vo v, etc. (s. 9). I take his statement as good evidence of the real opinion entertained both by Agesilaus and by Archidamus ; an opinion the more natural, since the two contemporary kings of Sparta were almost always at variance, and at the head of opposing parties ; especially true about Agesilaus and Kleom brotus, during the life of the latter. Cicero (probably copying Kallisthenes or Ephorus) says, de Officiis, i, 24, 84 "Ilia plaga(Lacedaemoniis) pestifera, quit, quum Cleombrotus invidi- am timens temere cum Epaminonda conflixisset, Lacedaemoniorum opes corraerunt." Polybius remarks (ix, 23, we know not from whom he bor- rowed) that all the proceedings of Kleombrotus during the empire of Sparta, were marked with a generous regard for the interests and feelings of the *1 lies ; while the proceedings of Agesilaus were of the opposite character
 * Xen. Hellen. vi, 4, 8. E/f d' ovv TIJV fiu%t]v rolf pev Aaitedaifiovioif TTUVTO