Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/207

 CONDUCT OF KLEOMBROTUS. 18i tear of unpopularity. Such criticisms, coming from men wise after the fact, and consoling themselves for the public calamity by censuring the unfortunate commander, will not stand examination. Kleombrotus represented on this occasion the feeling universal among his countrymen. He was ordered to march against Thebes with the full belief, entertained by Agesilaus and all the Spartan leaders, that her unassisted force could not resist him. To fight the Thebans on open ground was exactly what he and every other Spartan desired. While his manner of forcing the entrance of Boeotia, and his capture of Kreusis, was a creditable manoauvre, he seems to have arranged his order of battle in the manner usual with Grecian generals at the time. There appears no reason to censure his generalship, except in so far as he was unable to divine, what no one else divined, the superior combinations of his adversary, then for the first time applied to practice. To the discredit of Xenophon, Epaminondas is never named in his narrative of the battle, though he recognizes in substance that the battle was decided by the irresistible Theban force brought to bear upon one point of the enemy's phalanx ; a fact which both Plu- tarch and Diodorus 1 expressly refer to the genius of the general. All the calculations of Epaminondas turned out successful. The bravery of the Thebans, cavalry as well as infantry, seconded by the training which they had received during the last few years, was found sufficient to carry his plans into full execution. To this circumstance, principally, was owing the great revolution of opinion throughout Greece which followed the battle. Every one fult that a new military power had arisen, and that the Theban training, under the generalship of Epaminondas, had proved itself more than a match on a fair field, with shield and spear, and with numbers on the whole inferior, for the ancient Lykurgean dis- cipline ; which last had hitherto stood without a parallel as turning out artists and craftsmen in war, against mere citizens in the op- posite ranks, armed but without the like training. 2 Essentially stationary and old-fashioned, the Lykurgean discipline was now Diodor. xv, 55. Epaminondas, idea TLVL KOL irepiTTfi rugst xprjaufievof, fid ri/f id'taf crparrj-yiaf ^foie^oirjaaro T?/V TrepipojjTOv VIKTJV 6id KOI Aof^v KotTjoas rrjv (j>a%ay-ya, TCJ roiif kfd.EKTOvi; e% )vrt Kepan eyvu tpivsiv rrjv uu- j??v, etc Compare Plutarch, Pelop. c. 23.
 * See Aristotcl. Politic, viii, 3, 3, 5.