Agesilaus | Page 9

on the Hellespont. All these took part in the
foward rush of the attack just mentioned, and coming within
spear-thrust they routed that portion of the enemy in front of them. The
Argives did not even wait for Agesilaus and his division, but fled
towards Helicon, and at that moment some of his foreign friends were
on the point of crowning Agesilaus with the wreath of victory, when
some one brought him word that the Thebans had cut through the
division from Orchomenus and were busy with the baggage-train.
Accordingly he at once deployed his division and advanced by
counter-march against them. The Thebans on their side, seeing that
their allies had scattered on Helicon, and eager to make their way back
to join their friends, began advancing sturdily.
[7] Lit. "a stade."
[8] Lit. "three plethra."
To assert that Agesilaus at this crisis displayed real valour is to assert a
thing indisputable, but for all that the course he adopted was not the
safest. It was open to him to let the enemy pass in their effort to rejoin
their friends, and that done to have hung upon their heels and
overmastered their rear ranks, but he did nothing of the sort: what he
did was, to crash front to front against the Thebans. And so with shields
interlocked they shoved and fought and fought and shoved, dealing
death and yielding life. There was no shouting, nor yet was there even
silence, but a strange and smothered utterance, such as rage and battle
vent.[9] At last a portion of the Thebans forced their way through
towards Helicon, but many were slain in that departure.
[9] Or, "as the rage and fury of battle may give vent to." See "Cyrop."
VII. i. 38-40. A graphic touch omitted in "Hell." IV. iii. 19.
Victory remained with Agesilaus. Wounded himself, they bore him
back to his own lines, when some of his troopers came galloping up to
tell him that eighty of the enemy had taken refuge with their arms[10]
under cover of the Temple,[11] and they asked what they ought to do.
He, albeit he had received wounds all over him, having been the mark
of divers weapons, did not even so forget his duty to God, and gave
orders to let them go whithersoever they chose, nor suffered them to be

ill-treated, but ordered his bodyguard of cavalry to escort them out of
reach of danger.
[10] I.e. "they had kept their arms."
[11] See Plut. "Ages." xix.; Paus. ix. 34.
And now that the battle had ceased, it was a sight to see where the
encounter took place, the earth bedabbled with gore, the dead lying
cheek by jowl, friend and foe together, and the great shields hacked and
broken to pieces, and the spears snapped asunder, the daggers lying
bare of sheaths, some on the ground, some buried in the bodies, some
still clutched in the dead men's hands. For the moment then, seeing that
it was already late in the day, they dragged together the corpses of their
slain apart from those of the enemy[12] and laid them within the lines,
and took their evening meal and slept; but early next morning
Agesilaus ordered Gylis, the polemarch, to marshal the troops in battle
order and to set up a trophy, while each man donned a wreath in honour
of the god, and the pipers piped. So they busied themselves, but the
Thebans sent a herald asking leave to bury their dead under cover of a
truce. And so it came to pass that a truce was made, and Agesilaus
departed homewards, having chosen, in lieu of supreme greatness in
Asia, to rule, and to be ruled, in obedience to the laws at home.
[12] Reading, {tous ek ton polemion nekrous}, after Weiske.
It was after this[13] that his attention was drawn to the men of Argos.
They had appropriated Corinth, and were reaping the fruits of their
fields at home. The war to them was a merry jest. Accordingly he
marched against them; and having ravaged their territory throughout,
he crossed over by the pass[14] down upon Corinth and captured the
long walls leading to Lechaeum. And so having thrown open the gates
of Peloponnese he returned home in time for the Hyacinthia,[15] where,
in the post assigned to him by the master of the chorus, he shared in the
performance of the paean in honour of the god.
[13] B.C. 393.
[14] {kata ta stena}. See "Hell." IV. iv. 19. {kata Tenean}, according to
Koppen's emendation.
[15] See Grote, "H. G." v. 208; Herod. ix. 7; "Hell." IV. v. 10.
Later on, it being brought to his notice that the Corinthians were
keeping all their cattle safely housed in the Peiraeum, sowing the whole
of that district,