which a Spartan, a friend of Lysander, asked what Hoplites he meant, for he did not know the name. "It was there," answered the Phocian, "that the enemy killed the first of us; the rivulet by the city is called Hoplites." On hearing which the Spartan shed tears and observed, how impossible it is for any man to avoid his appointed lot; Lysander, it appears, having received an oracle, as follows:—
Sounding Hoplites see thou bear in mind,
And the earthborn dragon following behind.
Some, however, say that Hoplites does not run by Haliartus, but is a watercourse near Coronea, falling into the river Philarus, not far from the town in former times called Hoplias, and now Isomantus.
The man of Haliartus who killed Lysander, by name Neochorus, bore on his shield the device of a dragon; and this, it was supposed, the oracle signified. It is said, also, that at the time of the Peloponnesian war, the Thebans received an oracle from the sanctuary of Ismenus, referring at once to the battle at Deliuni. and to this which thirty years after took place at Haliartus. It ran thus:—
Hunting the wolf, observe the utmost bound,
And the hill Orchalides where foxes most are found.
By the words, "the utmost bound," Delium being intended, where Bœotia touches Attica, and by Orchalides, the hill now called Alopecus,[1] which lies in the parts of Haliartus towards Helicon.
- ↑ Alōpĕcus, derived from alōpex, a fox. Hoplītes, it may also be noticed, in explanation of the surprise of Lysander's friend, would be an unusual name for a stream, being the ordinary word for a heavy-armed soldier, a man-at-arms.
