They brought word that the whole army was in that manner taking rest. Xenophon and his men, therefore, stationing such a guard as they could, took up quarters there without fire or supper. When it was near day, he sent the youngest of his men to the sick, telling them to rouse them and oblige them to proceed.
At this juncture Cheirisophus sent some of his people from the villages to see how the rear were faring. The young men were rejoiced to see them, and gave them the sick to conduct to the camp, while they themselves went forward, and, before they had gone twenty stadia, found themselves at the village in which Cheirisophus was quartered. When they came together, it was thought safe enough to lodge the troops up and down in the villages. Cheirisophus accordingly remained where he was, and the other officers, appropriating by lot the several villages that they had in sight, went to their respective quarters with their men.
Here Polycrates, an Athenian captain, requested leave of absence, and, taking with him the most active of his men, and hastening to the village which Xenophon had been allotted, surprized all the villagers and their head man in their houses, together with seventeen colts that were bred as a tribute for the king, and the head man's daughter, who had been but nine days married; her husband was gone out to hunt hares, and was not found in any of the villages. Their houses were under ground, the entrance like the mouth of a well, but spacious below; there were passages dug into them for the cattle, but the people descended by ladders. In the houses were goats, sheep, cows, and fowls, with their young; all the cattle were kept on fodder within the walls.[51] There were also wheat, barley, leguminous vegetables, and barley-wine, in large bowls; the grains of barley floated in it even with the brims of the vessels, and reeds also lay in it, some larger and some smaller, without joints; and these, when any one was thirsty, he was to take in his mouth and suck. The liquor is very strong, unless one mixed water with it, and a very pleasant drink to those accustomed to it.
FOOTNOTES:
[49] From the "Anabasis." Translated by J. S. Watson. The "Anabasis" has made Xenophon perhaps the most prominent figure of ancient classical literature, largely because every schoolboy who studies Greek knows at least this book. It stands in that sense to Greek literature as Cæsar's "Commentaries" stands to Latin. The book has further value, not only as authentic history, but for the curious details it gives of the manners and customs of savage tribes living along the shores of the Euxine, and of those which prevailed at the Persian court and elsewhere in the Persian state.
[50] A Spartan general who, at the instance of Xenophon, had been appointed to lead the van of the retreating Greek army.
[51] W. T. Ainsworth, who has made a geographical commentary on Xenophon's "Anabasis," says: "This description of a village on the Armenian uplands applies itself to many that I visited." Houses on exposed elevations he found to be still semisubterranean. Whatever might be the kind of cottage used, domestic animals "participated with the family in the warmth and protection thereof."
III
THE BATTLE OF LEUCTRA[52]
(371 b.c.)
For the battle everything was adverse on the side of the Lacedæmonians, while to the enemy everything was rendered favorable by fortune. It was after dinner that the last council of war was held by Cleombrotus; and, as the officers had drunk a little at noon, it was said that the wine in some degree inspired them. And as, when both sides were fully armed, and it was now evident that a battle would take place, the people who had provisions for sale, with some of the baggage-carriers and others who were unwilling to fight, were proceeding first of all to quit the camp of the Bœotians, the mercenaries under Hiero the Phocian peltasts, and the Heraclean and Phliasian cavalry, making a circuit, fell upon them as they were going off, turned them back, and pursued them to the Bœotian camp; so that they made the army of the Bœotians larger and more numerous than before.
Besides, as there was a plain between the armies, the Lacedæmonians drew up their cavalry before their main body and the Thebans drew up theirs over against them; but the cavalry of the Thebans had been exercised in wars with the Orchomenians and Thespians, while that of the Lacedæmonians was at that time in a very inefficient condition; for the richest men maintained the horses, and, when notice of an expedition was given, the men appointed came to ride them, and each taking his horse, and whatever arms were given him, proceeded at once to the field; and thus the weakest and least spirited of all the men were mounted on horseback. Such was the cavalry on either side. Of the foot, it was said that the Lacedæmonians advanced with each enomoty drawn up three deep, this arrangement making them not more than twelve deep in all. The Theban infantry, in close array, were not less than fifty deep, considering that if they could defeat the body of the enemy posted around the king, the rest of the army would be an easy conquest.
As soon as Cleombrotus began to lead forward against the enemy, and even before the troops about him were aware that he was putting them in motion, the cavalry had already engaged, and those of the Lacedæmonians were at once defeated, who, as they fled, fell in among their own heavy-armed infantry, on which the troops of the Thebans were also pressing. But that the troops round Cleombrotus had at first the advantage in the contest, any one may be convinced by certain proof; for they would not have been able to take him and carry him off alive unless those who fought in front of him had been at that time victorious. When, however, Deimon the polemarch, Sphodrias, one of the attendants at the royal tent, and Cleonymus, his son, were killed, and the horse-guard, those who are called supporters of the polemarch, and the rest, being overpowered by the mass of the enemy, were forced to fall back, the Lacedæmonians on the left, seeing the right wing thus repulsed, also gave way; yet, tho many were killed, and they were quite defeated, they were able, when they had repassed the trench which was in front of the camp, to form themselves under arms in the place from which they had set out. Their camp was nevertheless not on level ground, but rather somewhat on an acclivity.
Some of the Lacedæmonians, at the time, who thought their disaster an insupportable disgrace, exclaimed that they ought to prevent the enemy from erecting a trophy, and endeavor to recover the dead, not by making a truce, but by fighting another battle. However, the polemarchs, seeing that of the Lacedæmonians in all nearly a thousand had lost their lives; and that of the Spartans, who were in the field to the number of about seven hundred, about four hundred had fallen; and observing, also, that all the auxiliaries were too dispirited to renew the combat, and some of them not even concerned at what had happened, called a council of the chief officers, and deliberated what course they ought to pursue; and as all were of opinion that "they ought to fetch off the dead by truce," they accordingly despatched a herald to treat respecting a truce. The Thebans soon afterward erected a trophy, and gave up the dead under truce.
After these occurrences, the messenger who was sent with the news of the calamity to Lacedæmon arrived there on the last day of the gymnopædiæ and after the chorus of men had made their entry. The ephors, when they heard of the calamity, were greatly concerned, as, I think, they naturally must have been; yet they did not order that chorus to withdraw, but allowed them to finish the entertainment. They then sent the names of the dead to their several relatives, and gave notice to the women to make no lamentations, but to bear their affliction in silence. The day after, a person might have seen those whose relatives had died appearing
