Lysander

And near by is also the memorial of Alcmene; for she was buried there, as they say, having lived with Rhadamanthus after the death of Amphitryon. But the Thebans inside the city, drawn up in battle array with the Haliartians, kept quiet for some time; when, however, they saw Lysander with his foremost troops approaching the wall, they suddenly threw open the gate and fell upon them, and killed Lysander himself with his soothsayer, and a few of the rest; for the greater part of them fled swiftly hack to the main body.

And when the Thebans made no halt, but pressed hard upon them, the whole force turned to the hills in flight, and a thousand of them were slain. Three hundred of the Thebans also lost their lives by pursuing their enemies into rough and dangerous places. These had been accused of favouring the Spartan cause, and in their eagerness to clear themselves of this charge in the eyes of their fellow-citizens, they exposed themselves needlessly in the pursuit, and so threw away their lives.[*](Cf. Xen. Hell. 3.5.17-20.)

Tidings of the disaster were brought to Pausanias while he was on the march from Plataea to Thespiae, and putting his army in battle array, he came to Haliartus. Thrasybulus also came from Thebes, leading his Athenians. But when Pausanias was minded to ask for the bodies of the dead under a truce, the elders of the Spartans could not brook it, and were angry among themselves, and coming to the king, they protested that the body of Lysander must not be taken up under cover of a truce, but by force of arms, in open battle for it; and that if they conquered, then they would give him burial, but if they were vanquished, it would be a glorious thing to he dead with their genera.

Such were the words of the elders; but Pausanias saw that it would be a difficult matter to conquer the Thebans, flushed as they were with victory, and that the body of Lysander lay near the walls, so that its recovery would be difficult without a truce, even if they were victorious; he therefore sent a herald, and after making a truce, led his forces back.