In consequence of the peace the Athenians proceeded to withdraw their garrisons from the different sates, and sent to recall Iphicrates with his fleet; besides which they forced him to restore eveything captured subsequently to the late solemn undertaking at Lacedaemon. The Lacedaemonians acted differently. Although they withdrew their governors and garrisons from the other states, in Phocis they did not do so. Here Cleombrotus was quartered with his army, and had sent to ask directions from the home authorities. A speaker, Prothous, maintained that their business was to disband the army in accordance with their oaths, and then to send round invitations to the states to contribute what each felt individually disposed, and lay such sum in the temple of Apollo; after which, if any attempt to hinder the independence of the states on any side were manifested, it would be time enough then again to invite all who cared to protect the principle of autonomy to march against its opponents. “In this way,” he added, “I think the goodwill of heaven will be secured, and the states will suffer least annoyance.” But the Assembly, on hearing these views, agreed that this man was talking nonsense. Puppets in the hands of fate!552 An unseen power, it would seem, was already driving them onwards; so they sent instructions to Cleombrotus not to disband the army, but to march straight against the Thebans if they refused to recognise the autonomy of the states. [Cleombrotus, it is understood, had, on hearing the news of the establishment of peace, sent to the ephorate to ask for guidance; and then they sent him the above instructions, bidding him under the circumstances named to march upon Thebes.553]
The Spartan king soon perceived that, so far from leaving the Boeotian states their autonomy, the Thebans were not even preparing to disband their army, clearly in view of a general engagement; he therefore felt justified in marching his troops into Boeotia. The point of ingress which he adopted was not that which the Thebans anticipated from Phocis, and where they were keeping guard at a defile; but, marching through Thisbae by a mountainous and unsuspected route, he arrived before Creusis, taking that fortress and capturing twelve Theban war-vessels besides. After this achievement he advanced from the seaboard and encamped in Leuctra on Thespian territory. The Thebans encamped in a rising ground immediately opposite at no great distance, and were supported by no allies except the Boeotians.
At this juncture the friends of Cleombrotus came to him and urged upon him strong reasons for delivering battle. “If you let the Thebans escape without a battle,” they said, “you will run great risks of suffering the extreme penalty at the hands of the state. People will call to mind against you the time when you reached Cynoscephelae and did not ravage a square foot of Theban territory; and again, a subsequent expedition when you were driven back foiled in your attempt to make an entry into the enemy’s country — while Agesilaus on each occasion found his entry by Mount Cithaeron. If then you have any care for yourself, or any attachment to your fatherland, march you against the enemy.” That was what his friends urged. As to his opponents, what they said was, “Now our fine friend will show whether he really is so concerned on behalf of the Thebans as he is said to be.”
Cleombrotus, with these words ringing in his ears, felt driven554 to join battle. On their side the leaders of Thebes calculated that, if they did not fight, their provincial cities555 would hold aloof from them and Thebes itself would be besieged; while, if the commonalty of Thebes failed to get supplies, there was every prospect that the city itself would turn against them; and, seeing that many of them had already tasted the bitterness of exile, they came to the conclusion that it was better for them to die on the field of battle than to renew that experience. Besides this they were somewhat encouraged by the recital of an oracle which predicted that the Lacedaemonians would be defeated on the spot where the monument of the maidens stood, who, as the story goes, being violated by certain Lacedaemonians, had slain themselves.556 This sepulchral monument the Thebans decked with ornaments before the battle. Furthermore, tidings were brought them from the city that all the temples had opened of their own accord; and the priestesses asserted that the gods revealed victory. Again, from the Heracleion men said that the arms had disappeared, as though Heracles himself had sallied forth to battle. It is true that another interpretation557 of these marvels made them out to be one and all the artifices of the leaders of Thebes. However this may be, everything in the battle turned out adverse to the Lacedaemonians; while fortune herself lent aid to the Thebans and crowned their efforts with success. Cleombrotus held his last council “whether to fight or not,” after the morning meal. In the heat of noon a little goes a long way; and the people said that it took a somewhat provocative effect on their spirits.558
Both sides were now arming, and there was the unmistakeable signs of approaching battle, when, as the first incident, there issued from the Boeotian lines a long train bent on departure — these were the furnishers of the market, a detachment of baggage bearers, and in general such people as had no inclination to join in the fight. These were met on their retreat and attacked by the mercenary troops under Hiero, who got round them by a circular movement.559 The mercenaries were supported by the Phocian light infantry and some squadrons of Heracleot and Phliasian cavalry, who fell upon the retiring train and turned them back, pursuing them and driving them into the camp of the Boeotians. The immediate effect was to make the Boeotian portion of the army more numerous and closer packed than before. The next feature of the combat was that in consequence of the flat space of plain560 between the opposing armies, the Lacedaemonians posted their cavalry in front of their squares of infantry, and the Thebans followed suit. Only there was this difference — the Theban cavalry was in a high state of training and efficiency, owing to their war with the Orchomenians and again their war with Thespiae, whilst the cavalry of the Lacedaemonians was at its worst at this period.561 The horses were reared and kept by the wealthiest members of the state; but whenever the ban was called out, an appointed trooper appeared who took the horse with any sort of arms which might be presented to him, and set off on the expedition at a moment’s notice. Moreover, these troopers were the least able-bodied of the men: raw recruits set simply astride their horses, and devoid of soldierly ambition. Such was the cavalry of either antagonist.
The heavy infantry of the Lacedaemonians, it is said, advanced by sections three files abreast,562 allowing a total depth to the whole line of not more than twelve. The Thebans were formed in close order of not less than fifty shields deep, calculating that victory gained over the king’s division of the army implied the easy conquest of the rest.
Cleombrotus had hardly begun to lead his division against the foe when, before in fact the troops with him were aware of his advance, the cavalry had already come into collision, and that of the Lacedaemonians was speedily worsted. In their flight they became involved with their own heavy infantry; and to make matters worse, the Theban regiments were already attacking vigorously. Still strong evidence exists for supposing that Cleombrotus and his division were, in the first instance, victorious in the battle, if we consider the fact that they could never have picked him up and brought him back alive unless his vanguard had been masters of the situation for the moment.
When, however, Deinon the polemarch and Sphodrias, a member of the king’s council, with his son Cleonymus,563 had fallen, then it was that the cavalry and the polemarch’s adjutants,564 as they are called, with the rest, under pressure of the mass against them, began retreating; and the left wing of the Lacedaemonians, seeing the right borne down in this way, also swerved. Still, in spite of the numbers slain, and broken as they were, as soon as they had crossed the trench which protected their camp in front, they grounded arms on the spot565 whence they had rushed to battle. This camp, it must be borne in mind, did not lie at all on the level, but was pitched on a somewhat steep incline. At this juncture there were some of the Lacedaemonians who, looking upon such a disaster as intolerable, maintained that they ought to prevent the enemy from erecting a trophy, and try to recover the dead not under a flag of truce but by another battle. The polemarchs, however, seeing that nearly a thousand men of the total Lacedaemonian troops were slain; seeing also that of the seven hundred Spartans themselves who were on the field something like four hundred lay dead;566 aware, further, of the despondency which reigned among the allies, and the general disinclination on their parts to fight longer (a frame of mind not far removed in some instances from positive satisfaction at what had taken place)— under the circumstances, I say, the polemarchs called a council of the ablest representatives of the shattered army567 and deliberated as to what should be done. Finally the unanimous opinion was to pick up the dead under a flag of truce, and they sent a herald to treat for terms. The Thebans after that set up a trophy and gave back the bodies under a truce.
After these events, a messenger was despatched to Lacedaemon with news of the calamity. He reached his destination on the last day of the gymnopaediae,568 just when the chorus of grown men had entered the theatre. The ephors heard the mournful tidings not without grief and pain, as needs they must, I take it; but for all that they did not dismiss the chorus, but allowed the contest to run out its natural course. What they did was to deliver the names of those who had fallen to their friends and families, with a word of warning to the women not to make any loud lamentations but to bear their sorrow in silence; and the next day it was a striking spectacle to see those who had relations among the slain moving to and fro in public with bright and radiant looks, whilst of those whose friends were reported to be living barely a man was to be seen, and these flitted by with lowered heads and scowling brows, as if in humiliation.
After this the ephors proceeded to call out the ban, including the forty-years-service men of the two remaining regiments;569 and they proceeded further to despatch the reservces of the same age belonging to the six regiments already on foreign service. Hitherto the Phocian campaign had only drawn upon the thirty-five-years-service list. Besides these they now ordered out on active service the troops retained at the beginning of the campaign in attendance on the magistrates at the government offices. Agesilaus............