Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/370

34.8 mSTORY OF GREECE. described by Xenophon, himself probably among the bystanders and companions of Agesilaus, was nothing less than the defeat and destruction of a Lacedaemonian mora or military division by the light troops under Iphikrates. As it was an understood privi- lege of the Amyklasan hoplites in the Lacedaemonian army always to go home, even when on actual service, to the festival of the Ilyakinthia, Agesilaus had left all of them at Lechaeum. The fes- tival day being now at hand, they set off to return. But the road from Lechagum to Sikyon lay immediately under the walls of Corinth, so that their march was not safe without an escort. Ac- cordingly the polemarch commanding at Lechaeum, leaving that place for the time under watch by the Peloponnesian allies, put himself at the head of the Lacedasmonian mora which formed the habitual garrison, consisting of six hundred hoplites, and of a mora of cavalry (number unknown) to protect the Amyklaeans until they were out of danger from the enemy at Corinth. Having passed by Corinth, and reached a point within about three miles of the friendly town of Sikyon, he thought the danger over, and turned back with his mora of hoplites to Lechaeum ; still, how- ever, leaving the officer of cavalry with orders to accompany the Amyklaeans as much farther as they might choose, and afterwards to follow him on the return march. 1 Though the Amyklaeans (probably not very numerous) were presumed to be in danger of attack from Corinth in their march, and though the force in that town was known to be considerable, it never occurred to the Lacedaemonian polemarch that there was any similar danger for his own mora of six hundred hoplites ; so contemptuous was his estimate of the peltasts, and so strong was the apprehension which these peltasts were known to entertain of the Lacedaemonians. But Iphikrates, who had let the whole body march by undisturbed, when he now saw from the walls of Corinth the six hundred hoplites returning separately, without either cav- alry or light troops, conceived the idea, perhaps, in the existing state of men's minds, no one else would have conceived it, of attacking them with his peltasts as they repassed near the town. Kallias, the general of the Athenian hoplites in Corinth, warmlj seconding the project, marched out his troops, and arrayed them 1 Xjn.Hellen.iv, 5,11,12.