Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/356

334 HISTORY OF GREECE. ter ; l upon which Pasimachus the Lacedaemonian commander of cavalry, coming to their aid, caused his small body of horsemen to dismount and tie their horses to trees, and then armed them with shields taken from the Sikyonians, inscribed on the outside with the letter Sigma (2). With these he approached ci f(.K)t to attack the Argeians, who, mistaking them for Sikyonian?, rushed to the charge with alacrity ; upon which Pasimachus exclaimed, " By the two gods, Argeians, these Sigmas which you see here will deceive you ; " he then closed with them resolutely, but his number was so inferior that he was soon overpowered and slain. Meanwhile, the Corinthian exiles on the left had driven back Iphikrates with his mercenaries (doubtless chiefly light troops) and pursued them even to the city gates ; while the Lacedaemo- nians, easily repelling the Corinthians opposed to them, came out of their palisade, and planted themselves with their faces towards the eastern wall, but at a little distance from it, to intercept the Argeians on their return. The latter were forced to run back as they could, huddling close along the eastern wall, with their right or unshielded side exposed, as they passed, to the spears of the Lacedaemonians. Before they could get to the walls of Corinth, they were met and roughly handled by the victorious Corinthian exiles. And even when they came to the walls, those within, un willing to throw open the gates for fear of admitting the enemy, contented themselves with handing down ladders, over which the defeated Argeians clambered with distress and difficulty. Alto- gether, their loss in this disastrous retreat was frightful. Their dead (says Xenophon) lay piled up like heaps of stones or wood. 3 This victory of Praxitas and the Lacedaemonians, though it did not yet make them masters of Lechaeum, 3 was, nevertheless, of 1 Xen. Hellcn. iv, 4, 10. Kat roi'f pev 'ZiKvuviovg bnpuTrjaav KOL 6iaaxu- aavTff TO OTavpujia idiuKov im du.^aaaav, aril SKEI 7roA/.otif avruv uirsKTei- vav. It would appear from hence that there must have been an open poition of Lechaeum, or a space apart from (but adjoining to) the wall which en- circled Lechaeum, yet still within the Long Walls. Otherwise the fugitive Sikyonians could hardly have got down to the sea. s Xen. Hellcn. iv, 4, 12. Qvruf ev 6At'yv KoXhol ereaov, wore el-dtafievoi ipi> ol uv&puTtoi aupovs O'ITOV, ^v'kuv, /U$ov, TOTE ideuaavro aupoi'f vsKpuv. A singular form of speech. 3 Diodorus (xiv, 87) represent;! that the Lacedaemonians on this occasion