[5] Lit. "Agesilaus."
[6] See "Cyrop." VI. iv. 1.
I proceed to describe the battle, for in certain distinctive features it differed from all the battles of our day. The contending forces met on the plain of Coronea, Agesilaus and his troops approaching from the Cephisus, the Thebans and their allies from the slopes of the Helicon. These masses of infantry, as any eye might see, were of duly balanced strength, while as near as could be the cavalry on either side was numerically the same. Agesilaus held the right of his own army, and on his extreme left lay the men of Orchomenus. On the opposite side the Thebans themselves formed their own right and the Argives held their left. While the two armies approached a deep silence prevailed on either side, but when they were now a single furlong's[7] space apart the Thebans quickened to a run, and, with a loud hurrah, dashed forward to close quarters. And now there was barely a hundred yards[8] between them, when Herippidas, with his foreign brigade, rushed forward from the Spartan's battle lines to meet them. This brigade consisted partly of troops which had served with Agesilaus ever since he left home, with a portion of the Cyreians, besides Ionians, Aeolians, and their neighbours 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, and gathering in their crops; and, which was a matter of the greatest moment, that the Boeotians, with Creusis as their base of operations, could pour their succours into Corinth by this route--he marched against Peiraeum. Finding it strongly guarded, he made as if the city of Corinth were about to capitulate, and immediately after the morning meal shifted his ground and encamped against the capital. Under cover of night there was a rush from Peiraeum to protect the city, which he was well aware of, and with break of day he turned right about and took Peiraeum, defenceless as it lay, capturing all that it contained, with the various fortresses within; and having so done retired homewards.
After these exploits[16] the Achaeans were urgent for an alliance, and begged him to join them in an expedition against Acarnania. In the course of this the Acarnanians attacked him in a defile. Storming the heights above his head with his light troops,[17] he gave them battle, and slew many of them, and set up a trophy, nor stayed his hand until he had united the Acarnanians, the Aetolians, and the Argives,[18] in friendship with the Achaeans and alliance with himself.
[16] B.C. 390-389?
[17] See "Hell." IV. vi. 9-11, where it is expressly stated that the action was won by the Spartan hoplites. See Hartman, "An. Xen." (cap. xi. "De Agesilao libello"), p. 263, for other discrepancies between the historian and the encomiast.
[18] See perhaps "Hell." IV. iv. 19; vii. 2 foll.
When the enemy, being desirous of peace, sent an embassy, it was Agesilaus who spoke against the peace,[19] until he had forced the states of Corinth and of Thebes to welcome back those of them who, for Lacedaemon's sake, had suffered banishment.
[19] I.e. "of Antalcidas, B.C. 387." See "Hell." V. i. 36; Grote, "H. G." ix. 537 note.
And still later,[20] again, he restored the exiles of the Phliasians, who had suffered in the same cause, and with that object marched in person against Phlius, a proceeding which, however liable to censure on other grounds, showed unmistakable attachment to his party.[21]
[20] B.C. 383 and 380; see "Hell." V. ii. 10; iii. 10.
[21] See "Hell." V. iii. 16.
Thus, when the adverse faction had put to death those of the Lacedaemonians then in Thebes, he brought succour to his friends, and marched upon Thebes.[22] Finding the entire country fenced with ditch and palisading, he crossed Cynoscephalae[23] and ravaged the district right up to the city itself, giving the Thebans an opportunity of engaging him in the plain or upon the hills, as they preferred. And once more, in the ensuing year,[24] he marched against Thebes, and now surmounting these palisades and entrenchments at Scolus,[25] he ravaged the remainder of Boeotia.