Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/210

188 HISTORY OF GREECE. ready recounted the prodigious and unexpected energy displayed by Athens, after the ruinous loss of her two armaments before Sy- racuse, when no one expected that she could have held out for six months : I am now about to recount the proceedings of Sparta, after the calamity at Leuktra, a calamity great and serious in- deed, yet in positive amount inferior to what had befallen the Athenians at Syracuse. The reader will find that, looking to the intensity of active effort in both cases, the comparison is all to the advantage of Athens ; excusing at least, if not justifying, the boast of Perikles 1 in his memorable funeral harangue, that his coun- trymen, without the rigorous drill of Spartans, were yet found no- way inferior to Spartans in daring exertion, when the hour of actual trial arrived. It was the first obligation of the ephors to provide for the safety of their defeated army in Boeotia ; for which purpose they put in march nearly the whole remaining force of Sparta. Of the Lace- daemonian morae, or military divisions (seemingly six in the aggre- gate), two or three had been sent with Kleombrotus ; all the remainder were now despatched, even including elderly citizens up to near sixty years of age, and all who had been left behind in consequence of other public offices. Archidamus took the com- mand (Agesilaus still continuing to be disabled), and employed himself in getting together the aid promised from Tegea, from the villages representing the disintegrated JMantinea, from Co- rinth, Sikyon, Phlius, andAchaia; all these places being still under the same oligarchies which had held them under Lacedemonian patronage, and still adhering to Sparta. Triremes were equipped at Corinth, as a means of transporting the new army across to Kreusis, and thus joining the defeated troops at Leuktra ; the port of Kreusis, the recent acquisition of Kleombrotus, being now found inestimable, as the only means of access into Boeotia. 2 Meanwhile the defeated army still continued in its entrenched camp at Leuktra, where the Thebans were at first in no hurry to disturb it. Besides that this was a very arduous enterprise, even after the recent victory, we must recollect the actual feeling of the Thebans themselves, upon whom their own victory had come by surprise, at a moment when they were animated more by de- 1 Thucyd. ii, 39. * Xen. Hellen. vi, 4, 17-1 9.