History of the Peloponnesian War

though in this part of the field, I say, the Lacedaemonians were worsted, yet with the rest of their forces, and especially the centre, where was King Agis, and around him the three hundred horsemen, [*]( "He adds καλούμενοι, because, though called horsemen, they were really infantry. The actual cavalry were on the wings, as had been already stated, ch. 67. 1. These three hundred horsemen, as they were called, were originally, we may suppose, so many chiefs, who fought round their king, not on foot, but in their chariots; this being the early sense of ἱππεύν and ἱππότης as we find from Homer. —Arnold.) as they are called, they fell on the veterans of the Argives, and what are named the five lochi, with the Cleonaeans, the Orneans, and those of the Athenians who were posted next to them, and put them to flight; the majority not having even waited to close with them, but having, on the approach of the Lacedaemonians, immediately given way, and some of them having been even trodden under foot, [*]( Literally, that the overtaking might not anticipate them. For the different explanations of this very doubtful expression, see Poppo's or Arnold's note. I have followed Heilman and Haack in considering τὴν ἐγκατάληψιν as the subject of φθῆναι, (though it is, what Poppo calls it, durior explanatio; ) because in every other instance that I have observed, in which Thucydides uses the article τοῦ with an infinitive, whether with μὴ or without it, it expresses purpose, and not effect, or cause. See I. 4; II. 4. 2; 32. 1; V. 27. 2; VIII. 14. 1; 39. 4. The only one of these passages which might seem an exception to what has been stated, is the second; and that is not really one, if τοῦ μὴ ἐκφεύγειν be joined with διώκοντας, as Poppo takes it.) in their hurry to avoid being anticipated and overtaken.

When the army of the Argives and their allies had given way on this side, [*]( i. e. by one part of it having advanced beyond it to pursue the enemy and by another part having been beaten back behind it. —Arnold.) their line was now broken off both ways; while at the same time the right wing of the Lacedaemonians and Tegeans was surrounding the Athenians with the troops which outflanked them, and they were encompassed with danger on both sides, as they were being surrounded on one, and were already beaten on the other. Indeed they would have suffered most severely of all the army, if the presence of their cavalry had not been of service to them.

It happened too, that Agis, on perceiving the Lacedaemonian left wing, which was opposed to the Montineans and the thousand Argives, to be hard pressed, gave orders for the whole army to advance to the support of the division which was being defeated.