Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/234

 212 HISTORY OF GREECE. side, having ravaged the fields and encamped within little more than two miles from the walls of Mantinea, was agreeably sur- prised by the junction of his allies from Orchomenus, who had eluded by a night-march the vigilant of the enemy. Both on one side and on the other, the forces were thus concentrated. Agesilaus found himself on the first night, without intending it, embosomed in a recess of the mountains near Mantinea, where the Mantineans gathered on the high ground around, in order to attack him from above, the next morning. By a well-managed retreat, he extricated himself from this inconvenient position, and regained the plain ; where he remained three days, prepared to give battle if the ene- my came forth, in order that he might "not seem (says Xenophon) to hasten his departure through fear." 1 As the enemy kept within their walls, he marched homeward, on the fourth day, to his former camp in the Tegean territory. The enemy did not pursue, and he then pushed on his march, though it was late in the evening, to Eutaea ; " wishing (says Xenophon) to get his troops off before even the enemies' fires could be seen, in order that no one might say that his return was a flight. He thought that he had raised the spirit of Sparta out of the previous discouragement, by invad- ing Arcadia and ravaging the country without any enemy coming forth to fight him."2 The army was then brought back to Sparta and disbanded. It had now become a matter of boast for Agesilaus (according to his own friendly historian) to keep the field for three or four days, without showing fear of Arcadians and Eleians ! So fatally had Spartan pride broken down, since the day (less than eighteen months before) when the peremptory order had been sent to Kle- ombrotus, to march out of Phokis straight against Thebes ! Nevertheless it was not from fear of Agesilaus, but from a wise discretion, that the Arcadians and Eleians had kept within the 1 Xen. Hellen. vi, 5, 20. oiruf fir] dono'ii/ (j>of3ovfj.evof anevdeiv TTJV efyofiov. See Leake's Travels in the Morea, vol. iii, c. xxiv, p. 74, 75. The exact spot designated by the words rbv oma&ev KO^TTOV rijf MavrcviKtje, seems hardly to be identified. 2 Xen. Hellen. vi, 5, 21. (3ov%6[tevo( uirayayeiv rovg frr^iraf, irpiv KOI ru nvpa ruv Tro2.e/j,i.uv idelv, Iva fir/ rtf sing, ? Qeiiyuv ana fayoi. 'E ytlp rf/( irpoa-Sev u-&vfj.iaf idoKEi re uvei).r;evai TTJV noXiv, on not lfj./3e(3?i?)Ki eif TTJV ApKudiav, ical dyovvri TTJV %faap ovdelf ^tfeXr/Ket fidxsafiai : compare Plu- tarch, Agesil. c. 30.