Description of Greece

When the battle joined, the allies of the Lacedaemonians, who had hitherto been not the best of friends, now showed most clearly their hostility, by their reluctance to stand their ground, and by giving way wherever the enemy attacked them. The Lacedaemonians themselves and the Thebans were not badly matched adversaries. The former had their previous experience, and their shame of lessening the reputation of Sparta; the Thebans realized that what was at stake was their country, their wives and their children.

But when king Cleombrotus with several Lacedaemonian magistrates had fallen, the Spartans were bound by necessity not to give way, in spite of their distress. For among the Lacedaemonians it was considered the greatest disgrace to allow the body of a king to come into the hands of enemies.

The victory of Thebes was the most famous ever won by Greeks over Greeks. The Lacedaemonians on the following day were minded to bury their dead, and sent a herald to the Thebans. But Epaminondas, knowing that the Lacedaemonians were always inclined to cover up their disasters, said that he permitted their allies first to take up their dead, and only when these had done so did he approve of the Lacedaemonians' burying their own dead.

Some of the allies took up no dead at all, as not a man of them had fallen; others had but slight loss to report. So when the Lacedaemonians proceeded to bury their own, it was at once proved that the fallen were Spartans. The loss of the Thebans and of such Boeotians as remained loyal amounted to forty-seven, but of the Lacedaemonians themselves there fell more than a thousand men.

After the battle Epaminondas for a while, having proclaimed that the other Peloponnesians should depart home, kept the Lacedaemonians cooped up in Leuctra. But when reports came that the Spartans in the city were marching to a man to the help of their countrymen at Leuctra, Epaminondas allowed his enemy to depart under a truce, saying that it would be better for the Boeotians to shift the war from Boeotia to Lacedaemon.

The Thespians, apprehensive because of the ancient hostility of Thebes and its present good fortune, resolved to abandon their city and to seek a refuge in Ceressus. It is a stronghold in the land of the Thespians, in which once in days of old they had established themselves to meet the invasion of the Thessalians. On that occasion the Thessalians tried to take Ceressus, but success seemed hopeless. So they consulted the god at Delphi,

and received the following response:—

1. A care to me is shady Leuctra, and so is the Alesian soil;
2. A care to me are the two sorrowful girls of Scedasus.
3. There a tearful battle is nigh, and no one will foretell it,
4. Until the Dorians have lost their glorious youth,
5. When the day of fate has come.
6. Then may Ceressus be captured, but at no other time.