Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/238

216 HISTORY OF GREECE. ans and Eleians were ravaging the lands of the recusant town of Heraaa. As they speedily came back to greet his arrival, the ag- gregate confederate body, Argeians, Arcadians, and Eleians, united with the Thebans and their accompanying allies, is said to have amounted to forty thousand, or according to some, even to seventy thousand men. 1 Not merely had Epaminondas brought with him a choice body of auxiliaries, Phokians, Lokrians, Eu- boeans, Akarnanians, Herakleots, Malians, and Thessalian cavalry and peltasts, but the Boeotian bands themselves were so brilliant and imposing, as to excite universal admiration. The victory of Leuktra had awakened among them an enthusiastic military ardor, turned to account by the genius of Epaminondas, and made to produce a finished discipline which even the unwilling Xenophon cannot refuse to acknowledge. 2 Conscious of the might of their assembled force, within a day's march of Laconia, the Arcadians, Argeians, and Eleians pressed Epaminondas to invade that coun- try, now that no allies could approach the frontier to its aid. At first he was unwilling to comply. He had not come prepared for the enterprise ; being well aware, from his own journey to Sparta (when the peace-congress was held there prior to the battle of Leuktra), of the impracticable nature of the intervening country, BO easy to be defended, especially during the winter-season, by troops like the Lacedaemonians, whom he believed to be in occu- pation of all the passes. Nor was his reluctance overcome until the instances of his allies were backed by assurances from the Arcadians on the frontier, that the passes were not all guarded ; as well as by invitations from some of the discontented Periceki, in Laconia. These Perioeki engaged to revolt openly, if he would only show himself in the country. They told him that there was a general slackness throughout Laconia in obeying the military requisitions from Sparta ; and tendered their lives as atonement if they should be found to speak falsely. By such encourage- ments, as well as by the general impatience of all around him to 1 Plutarch, Agesil. c. 31 ; and compare Agesil. and Pomp. c. 4 ; Biodor xv, 62. Compare Xenophon, Agesilaus, 2, 24. 9 Xen. Hellen. vi, 5, 23. OL 6s 'Ap/cadff nal 'ApysZoi KOL 'H/lefot eKCf&ov cbroijf fjyela'&ai wf ra^ioro e'i TTJV AaKuvinqv, iirideiKvvvT ftev rb eavruv irhf/dof, vTTpwaivovvTEf At- rd TUV &Tj(3aiuv arpdrevfia. Kal yap oi ftsv BotuTol eyvfivu^ovTo truvTEf 7T|>t ra 6?rAa, uyaTihoftsvoi Tjj iv Aewcrpoi viitt etc.