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328 HISTORY OF GREECE. was it possible for the Lacedaemonian army to return into Pel- oponnesus -without fighting ; for the Athenians, masters of the Megarid, were in possession of the difiicult highlands of Gera- neia, the road of march along the isthmus ; while the Athenian fleet, by means of the harbor of Pegae, was prepared to intercept them, if they tried to come by sea across the Krissaean gulf, by which way it would appear that they had come out. Near Tan- agra, a bloody battle took place between the two armies, wherein the Lacedaemonians were victorious, chiefly from the desertion of the Thessalian horse, who passed over to them in the very heat of the engagement.1 But though the advantage was on their side, it was not sufiiciently decisive to favor the contemplated rising in Attica : nor did the Peloponnesians gain anything by it, except an undisturbed retreat over the highlands of Geraneia, after having partially ravaged the Megarid. Though the battle of Tanagra was a defeat, yet there were circumstances connected with it which rendered its effects highly beneficial to Athens. The ostracized Kim on presented him- self on the field as soon as the army had passed over the boundaries of Attica, requesting to be allowed to occupy his Etation as an hoplite and to fight in the ranks of his tribe, — the CEneis. But such was the belief, entertained by the members of the senate and by his political enemies present, that he was an accomplice in the conspiracy known to be on foot, that permission was refused and he was forced to retire. In departing, he con- jured his personal friends, Euthippus, of the deme Anaphlystus, and others, to behave in such a manner as might wipe away the stain resting upon his fidelity, and in part also upon theirs. His friends retained his panoply, and assigned to it the station in the ranks which he would himself have occupied : they then entered the engagement with desperate resolution, and one hundred of them fell side by side in their ranks. Perikles, on his part, who was present among the hoplites of his own tribe, the Akamantis, aware of this application and repulse of Kimon, thought it in- cumbent upon him to display not merely his ordinary personal courage, but an unusual recklessness of life and safety, though it happened that he escaped unwounded. All these incidents wrought about a generous sympathy and spirit of compromise ' Thucyd. i, 107. •