Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/355

TREACHERY OF PASIMELUS. 333 erable. Though personally they had no ill-usage to complain of, yet the complete predominance of their political enemies was quite sufficient to excite their most vehement antipathies. They entered into secret correspondence with Praxitas, the Lacedaemo- nian commander at Sikyon, engaging to betray to him one of the gates in the western Long Wall between Corinth and Lechaeum. The scheme being concerted, Pasimelus and his partisans got themselves placed, 1 partly by contrivance and partly by accident, on the night-watch at this gate ; an imprudence, which shows that the government not only did not maltreat thein, but even admitted them to trust. At the moment fixed, Praxita?, presenting him- self with a Lacedaemonian mwa or regiment, a Sikyonian force, and the Corinthian exiles, found the treacherous sentinels pre- pared to open the gates. Having first sent in a trusty soldier to satisfy him that there was no deceit, 2 he then conducted all his force within the gates, into the mid-space between the two Long Walls. So broad was this space, and so inadequate did his num- bers appear to maintain it, that he took the precaution of digging a cross-ditch with a palisade to defend himself on the side towards the city ; which he was enabled to do undisturbed, since the enemy (we are not told why) did not attack him all the next day. On the ensuing day, however, Argeians, Corinthians, and Athenian mercenaries under Iphikrates, all came down from the city in full force ; the latter stood on the right of the line, along the eastern wall, opposed to the Corinthian exiles on the Lacedaemonian left ; while the Lacedaemonians themselves were on their own right, op- posed to the Corinthians from the city ; and the Argeians, opposed to the Sikyonians, in the centre. It was here that the battle began ; the Argeians, bold from su- perior numbers, attacked and broke the Sikyonians, tearing up the palisade, and pursuing them down to the sea with much slaugh- 1 Xen. Hellen. iv, 4, 8. Kal Kara TVXTIV Kal HOT' eTrifieheiav, etc. 2 Xen. Hellen. iv, 4, 8. Nothing can show more forcibly the Laccnian bias of Xenophon, than the credit which he gives to Pasimelus for his good faith towards the Lacedaemonians whom he was letting in ; overlooking or approving his treacherous betrayal towards his own countrymen, in thus opening a gate which he had been trusted to watch, rw ff e/ff^yaytV^v, Kal oflrcof &vG)f u^e 6e . * UTTJV , ware 6 elaeMuv /fyyyff^f, m'cvra elva: eld Tfp iTie-yirr/p.