CONON. 567 the position which they had left in the morning phon-occupied with the exploits of Agesilaus on the Nemea. This victory cost the Lacedæ--passes over the steps that led to this event, monians only eight lives, though their allies lost which produced a most important change in the 1100, the enemy 2800.* It seems as if the terror of their name stifled all resistance. whole aspect of affairs both in Asia and Europe, in total silence; though the successful endeav The news of the battle of Corinth reached ours of one of his most illustrious countrymen Agesilaus on his march homeward, at Amphip- to restore the independence and power of Ath olis, where he had arrived after having made ens, might have seemed not less interesting his way, partly by threats, partly by force, than the marauding adventures of his Spartan through the Thracian tribes.† Dercyllidas was hero. Conon, after his escape from Ægos-potathe bearer; and, at the request of Agesilaus, un- mi, had been hospitably welcomed at Cyprus by dertook to convey it to the Greek cities in Asia, Evagoras, who had taken advantage of a revowith a renewal of the promise which he had lution which overthrew a preceding dynasty at made to them at parting, to return as soon as Salamis, and had raised himself by his courage the state of affairs in Greece should permit. and prudence to the throne, which, as a deAgesilaus then continued his march through scendant of Teucer, he might claim with some Macedonia, where his bold countenance over- show of a legitimate title. Here Conon conawed all opposition, as it had done in Thrace. tinued, it seems, for some years to watch the But when he arrived in Thessaly he found the progress of events, waiting for an opportunity Thessalians, who, as the hereditary enemies of of rendering such service to his country as the Phocians, were all in alliance with the Boo- might enable him to return to it as its benefactians, bent on obstructing his passage. He had tor. The war in which Sparta soon afterward formed his infantry in a hollow square, and engaged with the power which had enabled her placed half of his cavalry in front and half in to triumph over Athens, opened a fairer prosthe rear. The charges of the Thessalian horse, pect; and it is clear that he actively availed which hovered on his rear, grew more and himself of it for the accomplishment of his main more annoying; and he was at length induced end. But the confused and contradictory stateto send the foremost division of his cavalry, all ments of the later writers render it difficult to but those who guarded his own person, to pro- fill up the blank which Xenophon has left. tect the rear. Here they drew up as for a reg- Many of them mention a journey made by Coular action; but the enemy, seeing them sup- non to the Persian court, and some in such a ported by the infantry, did not choose to risk a manner that it seems as if it could only be rebattle, and, wheeling round, began slowly to re-ferred to the period preceding the death of Tistreat, and were followed by them at an equally saphernes.* It appears, indeed, to have been gentle pace. Agesilaus saw at once the error one of Conon's objects to counteract the polwhich the enemy had committed, and the op- icy of Tissaphernes, and to induce Artaxerxes portunity which his own men were flinging to withdraw his confidence from him, and to away, and despatched the troop of horse which transfer it to Pharnabazus, with whom he remained with him to give the word for a vig- seems to have connected himself as soon as the orous pursuit, and to set the example them- satrap's friendly relations to Sparta had ceased. selves. The Thessalians were now so warmly And we should be inclined to believe, that one pressed that they had no time to wheel round result of this journey, if it took place in this peand face the enemy. Many did not attempt it, riod, was to urge those naval preparations of and sought safety only in flight. But those who the Persian court which gave occasion to the made the attempt, and among them their com- expedition of Agesilaus; and that the extraor mander Polymachus, were taken in flank before dinary commission by which Agesilaus was inthey could complete their evolution, and were vested with the supreme command of the navy most of them slain. The flight became a mere was an effect of the alarm excited at Sparta by rout, and did not cease until the fugitives had Conon's machinations. reached Mount Narthacium, part of the range of hills which skirt the Gulf of Pagasæ. Agesilaus pursued his march without farther interruption, well pleased with the victory he had gained over the most renowed cavalry of Greece with squadrons formed entirely by his own training. His success, indeed, was owing less to their skill and courage than to the enemy's oversight. But the impression which the report would produce might not be the less favourable. The next day he crossed the chain of Othrys, and had a friendly country to traverse as far as the borders of Boeotia. ruple to samz r the compr hose prevare ony still mes nst his own s them wit T long as they ed the Lacedas. it they alleged s as a preten -either by nex rding to an esta si icceeded to the s Ives in the other a then, says the stro ounced that the sch sued orders to poss in their dispositions io. cted the regulates adopted by comne * which the line of formly sixteen deep v wn practice, gave a phalanx; probably ty, as at Delium. ng the length of their in wards the enemy, they in the right; the constar » en, in the ancient battles nians, with the like voet the opposite direction. when the engagemen found four out of their t to the tribes, in front of 4 remaining six were left w 885 rce of the Lacedæmonias t of the line victory was a the northern allies, who enemy; but the Lacedem and easily overpowered the d to them, who were litte numerous, and, at the expens ves on their own side, ma ter. Having driven their sts off the field with so little they advanced, untired and in eet the other divisions of the returned from the pursuit of ther Onents; and falling in with them Dre they had recovered from ther rcame them, nearly as the s s, in the Roman legend, vanqu ious Curiatii. The four A ich had routed the Tegeans, nate enough to escape. The f elter in Corinth, but found the ainst them through a temporary f the Laconian party. They the P. 381. 80 were a 1 Demosthenes, Leptin., p. 473, sens d He here received intelligence of an event which deeply affected him, both as a private and a public calamity, and, while it wounded his domestic feelings, threatened ruin to the most cherished of his ambitious projects: this was the defeat and death of his brother-in-law, Pisander, whom, as we have seen, he had intrusted with the command of the fleet. Xeno *Diodor., xiv., 83. t Ibid., xiv., 83. Plut., Ages., 16. Still, it must be owned that it is not easy to reconcile these accounts with the more authentic narrative of Ctesias, who, in the meager epitome of his Persian History now extant, appears to represent Conon as for the first time opening a correspondence with Artaxerxes while he remained at Salamis.† Ctesias himself was intrusted with a share in the management of the negotiation, and he is said to have forged an addition to Conon's letter, by which the king was requested to send down his physician, as a man who might be useful in his naval affairs. But, according to his own account, Artaxerxes, of his own accord, employed him to bear a letter to Conon, and he was probably chosen for this purpose to give Conon the stronger assurance of the king's favour and Paus., iii., 9, 2. Nepos, Conon, 3. Wesseling, on Diodorus, xiv., 81, censures his author for referring Conon's journey to a later period, in contradiction to these statements, of which he says, " omnibus aperta atque explo rata sunt." + This appears also to have been Plutarch's impression, Artax., 21. + Plut., 1. c. Pers., 63. Plut., 1. c. confidence. The letter seems to have contain- | he himself went up to Babylon, where he had ed a commission empowering Conon to raise a an interview with Artaxerxes, who granted all fleet at the expense of the Persian treasury, and to act as admiral in the king's service under Pharnabazus. Ctesias was also charged with a letter, the contents of which cannot be so easily divined, to the Spartan government, and he ran some risk in carrying it; for he was put upon his trial, perhaps on the charge of conspiring with Conon against the Spartan interest, but was acquitted. his requests, and, at his own desire, appointed Pharnabazus his colleague. Pharnabazus ap pears to have taken command of the Phoenician galleys; the Greek squadron remained under the immediate orders of Conon. As they sailed westward along the coast of Syria, Conon's squadron being some way ahead, they fell in with Pisander coming from Cnidus. According to Diodorus, his fleet consisted of eighty-five galleys, and that of the enemy amounted altogether to no more than ninety. But Xenophon informs us that Conon's squadron alone was so much stronger than Pisander's fleet as to spread dismay among the enemy, and that on his apPeloponnesians immediately took to flight.* The rest were driven on shore, where Pisander, remaining with his ship to the last, fell, Spartanlike, sword in hand. Agesilaus thought it necessary to guard by a stratagem against the effect which the tidings of this disaster might have produced on his Asiatic troops, who had followed him with reluctance, and had now cause to be disheartened and uneasy for the safety of their homes. He therefore announced that, though Pisander himself had been slain, his fleet had been victorious; and he proceeded to offer a thanksgiving sacrifice for this joyful news. The success of this artifice, Xenophon says, was visible in the first skirmish that took place between his men and the enemy. It appears from the narrative of Diodorus,* compared with that of Xenophon,† that Conon must have entered the Persian service before Agesilaus took the command in Asia. For we find that Pharax, the Spartan admiral, in the course of the expedition which he made in con-proach many of the allies in the left wing of the junction with Dercyllidas against Caria, laid siege to Caunus, where Conon was then lying with forty galleys, but was forced to retire by Tissaphernest and Pharnabazus, who marched with a strong force to its relief. It seems to have been not long after that Conon, having increased his fleet to eighty galleys, sailed to the Lycian Chersonesus, to take advantage of some movements which he had himself excited in Rhodes. The democratical Rhodians, animated by the assurance of his support, notwithstanding the presence of the Peloponnesian armament under Pharax, revolted from Sparta, expelled their political adversaries, compelled Pharax to withdraw, and received Conon and his fleet into their harbour. This important acquisition was attended by another of considerable value. The Spartans had concluded an alliance with Ne- He found the whole force of the hostile conphereus, or Nepherites, who at this time held federacy-perhaps not inferior in numbers to Egypt in revolt against the Persian king; and the army which had been defeated near Corinth he had sent them a present of rigging for a hun--assembled in the plain of Coronea. He had dred galleys and a large quantity of corn. The collected some re-enforcements from the Greek Egyptian convoy was on its passage to Greece cities that lay on his road; and he was now when the revolution took place at Rhodes, and, joined by the forces of Phocis and Orchomenus, sailing in ignorance of the event along the coast and received the still more welcome addition of the island, was intercepted by Conon. We of a Lacedæmonian mora from Corinth, and of have already had occasion to notice the manner half a one which had been in garrison at Orin which the revolt of Rhodes appears to have chomenus. Xenophon, however, does not venbeen connected with the fate of Dorieus. ture to determine the proportion which his heavy infantry bore to those of the enemy, but observes, that in light troops he was far superior, and that the numbers of the cavalry on both sides were about equal. Agesilaus himself commanded the right wing, which was opposed to the Argives. The Orchomenian troops in his extreme left fronted the Thebans. The two armies advanced towards each other in deep silence, until they were about a furlong apart. The Thebans then raised the war shout, and ran forward to the charge; and at a shorter interval the Asiatic troops of Agesilaus likewise rushed out from the body of the phalanx to meet the enemy. Their onset, as well as that of the Thebans, broke through the opposite part of the hostile line. But the Argives did not even wait to receive the charge of Agesilaus, but fled towards Helicon, leaving him master of the field, and some of his followers were on the point of crowning him as victor, when he was informed that the Thebans, having dispersed the Orcho It was perhaps not before the following spring -that of 396, in which Agesilaus began his ex>edition to Asia-that Conon was re-enforced by an armament of ten Cilician and eighty Phonician galleys, commanded by a prince of Sidon. But we do not learn that he made any use of his powerful navy during the campaigns of Agesilaus; and we are informed that the want of money kept him for a time inactive. It seems most probable that he now made a journey to the Persian court for the purpose of obtaining supplies. Diodorus distinctly relates that he left the fleet in the care of two Athenians, named Hieronymus and Nicodemus, while * xiv., 79. + Hell., ii., 2. Diodorus, xiv., 79, has the name of Artaphernes. But when it is considered that Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus were at this time acting together in Caria, it can scarcely be doubted that either Diodorus has made one of his usual mistakes about the name, or that his text is corrupt. Above, p. 472. Isocr., Paneg., p. 79, says that, for three years preceding the battle of Cnidus, Artaxerxes suffered his navy to be blockaded by a fleet of no more than 100 galleys, and kept his troops fifteen months without their pay; and that the armament under Conon was frequently on the point of being broken up (πολλάκις ἂν διελύθησαν). Perhaps the Nicophemus who will afterward be mentional as Conon's intimate friend. * Diodorus, xiv., 83, may have mistaken the number of Conon's Greek squadron for that of the whole Phoenician fleet. It is, however, also possible that Xenophon adopted the Spartan official account of the battle without investigating the details. Indeed, a difference of five would hardly satisfy his πολὺ ἐλαττόνων. menians, had fallen upon his baggage. He im- tians, and Athenians, had an equal share in the mediately marched against them; and the The- conspiracy, or whether he is only speaking of bans, seeing the battle lost, were only anxious the foreign garrison. His horror is chiefly exto rejoin their allies, who had taken refuge in cited by the impiety of the murderers, who sethe hills, and for this purpose consolidated their lected a holyday for the deed, that they might ranks in the hopes of breaking through his line. be the more likely to find their enemies out of He would have acted, Xenophon thinks, more doors, and in the execution of their purpose like a prudent general, if he had opened a pas- paid no regard to the most sacred things and sage for them, and then cut them down as they places, but stained even the altars and images fled. He was perhaps swayed by personal re- of the gods with the blood of their victims. sentment, and in the hope of a more complete, Unhappily, this was no new excess of party though a less cheap and easy victory, stopped rage; but perhaps few scenes of this kind had their retreat. An obstinate conflict ensued, in been planned with more ferocious coolness, or which he received some severe wounds, but accompanied with a greater number of shockdefeated the enemy, and scattered them in all ing circumstances, though it must not be fordirections. He had just been carried back to gotten that it is Xenophon who describes it. his camp, when he was informed that some Suspicions, however, had been previously eneighty of the fugitives had taken shelter in the tertained of the plot by Pasimelus, one of the neighbouring sanctuary of the Itonian Athene. persecuted party, and at the time of the tumult Xenophon considers it as a memorable triumph a body of the younger citizens was assembled of piety over revenge, that he respected the with him, in a place of exercise, outside the asylum, and dismissed the suppliants in safety. walls. They immediately ran up to seize the Though the victory was clear, the enemy still Acrocorinthus, where they maintained themremained at hand in sufficient force to have re-selves for a time against the attacks of their newed the combat. The next day, therefore, enemies; but an unpropitious omen, probably Agesilaus ordered Gylis, the officer next in strengthening the consciousness of their weakcommand, to draw up the army in battle array, ness, made them resolve to withdraw, and to wearing their crowns in token of victory, and seek safety in exile. Yet, notwithstanding the to erect the trophy to martial music. But the impious treachery of their enemies, they were Thebans were not disposed to contest his tri-induced by the persuasions of their friends and umph, and applied for a truce to bury their slain. relatives, and by the oaths of the leading men Agesilaus then proceeded with a few followers of the opposite party, to abandon this intention to Delphi, to sacrifice a tenth of the spoil which and return to their homes. he had collected in the course of his Asiatic expedition. It amounted to not less than 100 talents. Gylis was ordered to invade Locris, which had given the first occasion or pretext of the war. But after a day's plunder, the Lacedæmonian troops returning last to their camp, were attacked by the Locrians, and having to make their way in the dark, over difficult and unknown ground, suffered some loss; Gylis himself was slain, with many of his officers; and it was only by the timely succour of their allies that they were saved from a more serious disaster. The army was then disbanded, and Agesilaus returned home by sea. The reputation which he had gained by his victories was heightened, when it was observed that they had wrought no change in his habits, and that he conformed to the laws and fashions of Sparta with as much simplicity as if he had never been in a foreign land. But Corinth still continued to be the theatre of war. A Lacedæmonian garrison occupied Sicyon, and made frequent inroads into the Corinthian territory. The allies of Corinth were well pleased to see themselves thus exempt from the calamities of war at her expense. But the party among the Corinthians which, on political grounds, desired to renew their connexion with Sparta, derived new motives from this state of things to encourage them in their designs, and they began to hold private meetings to concert measures for restoring peace. Their movements were observed by their adversaries, who determined to counteract them by one of those atrocious massacres which so frequently disfigure the pages of Greek history. We do not know what credit may be due to Xenophon when he intimates that all the principal allies of Corinth, the Argives, and BooVOL. I.-4 C But their fears for their personal safety had no sooner subsided than the state of public affairs again began to appear insupportable, and they were ready to run any risk for the sake of a change. The opposite party had gone so far in their enmity to Sparta, or in their zeal for democracy, as to do their utmost towards establishing a complete unity, both of civil rights and of territory, between Corinth and Argos. The landmarks which separated the two states had been removed, so that the name either of Corinth or of Argos might be applied to the whole. But since it was Argive influence that had brought about this union-since the Argive institutions had been adopted, and the Argive franchise communicated to the Corinthiansthe discontented had some reason to complain that Corinth had lost her independence and dignity, while Argos had gained an increase of territory by the transaction. But what they bore still more impatiently was the loss of their own rank and influence, which were totally extinguished by the union; they no longer enjoyed any exclusive privileges-any rights which they did not share with the whole Argive-Corinthian commonalty; and this was a franchise which they valued no more than the condition of an alien. They therefore resolved on a desperate effort for restoring Corinth to her former station in Greece, and for recovering their own station in Corinth. Pasimelus and Alcimenes took the lead in this enterprise. They obtained a secret interview with Praxitas, the Spartan commander at Sicyon, and proposed to admit him and his troops within the walls that joined Corinth with Lechæum, her port on the western gulf. He knew the men, and embraced their offer; and, at an appointed hour of night, came, with a mora of Lacedæmonians, and a body of Sicyonians and of Corinthian exiles, to a gate where the conspirators had contrived to get them selves placed on duty. He was introduced without any opposition; but, as the space between the walls was large, and he had brought but a small force with him, he threw up a slight intrenchment to secure himself until the succours which he expected should arrive. During the next day he remained quiet, and was not attacked, though, besides the garrison of the city, there was a body of Boeotians behind him at Lechæum; but aid had been summoned from Argos, and on the day following the Argive forces arrived, and, confident in their numbers, immediately sought the enemy. They were supported by their Corinthian partisans, and by a body of mercenaries commanded by Iphicrates, an Athenian general, who in this war laid the foundation of his military renown. The superiority of the Lacedæmonian troops over the other Greeks, and the terror they inspired even when they were greatly outnumbered, 'was again strikingly manifested in the engagement which ensued. The Argives forced their way through the intrenchment, and drove the handful of cyonians before them down to the sea; but, when the Lacedæmonians came up, they took to flight, without offering any resistance, and made for the city; but, meeting with the Corinthian exiles, who had defeated the mercenaries, and were returning from the pursuit, they were driven back, and those who did not make their escape by ladders over the wall* were slaughtered by the Lacedæmonians like a flock of sheep. Lechæum was taken, and the Baotian garrison put to the sword. After his victory, Praxitas was joined by the expected contingents of the allies, and he made use of them first to demolish the long walls for a space sufficient to afford a passage for an army. Next, crossing the Isthmus, he took and garrisoned the towns of Sidus and Crommyon. On his return, he fortified the heights of Epieicea, which commanded one of the most important passes, and then disbanded his army and returned to Sparta. Greek states had been engaged now became apparent. The number of persons who were thrown upon war as a means of subsistence had so much increased, that the contending powers were able to carry on the struggle with mercenary troops. Another result of the long practice of war was, that it had begun to be more and more studied as an art, and cultivated with new refinements. Thus Iphicrates had been led to devote his attention to the improvement of a branch of the light infantry, which had hitherto been accounted of little moment in the Greek military system. He had formed a new body of targeteers, which in some degree combined the peculiar advantages of the heavy and light troops, and was equally adapted for combat and pursuit. To attain these objects, he had substituted a linen corslet for the ancient coat of mail, and had reduced the size of the shield, while he doubled the length of the spear and the sword. At the head of this corps he made frequent inroads into Peloponnesus, and in the territory of Phlius he surprised the forces of the little state in an ambuscade, and made so great a slaughter of them that the Phliasians were obliged to admit a Lacedæmonian garrison into their town. They had before shrunk from this mode of securing themselves, through fear that their allies might abuse their confidence, and might compel them to receive their exiles, who professed a more zealous attachment to the Lacedæmonian interest. The Spartans, however, acted on this occasion with perfect honour and good faith: they abstained from interfering in favour of their partisans, and, finally, when their protection was no longer needed, left the town, with its institutions unaltered, in the possession of the party which had intrusted them with it. But in Arcadia, such was the terror inspired by the troops of Iphicrates, that they were suffered to plunder the country with impunity, and the Arcadians did not venture to meet them in the field. On the other hand, they were themselves no less in dread of the Lacedæmonians, who had taught them to keep aloof in a manner which proved the peculiar Two battles had now been fought, in which excellence of the Spartan military training. almost the whole force of Greece had been en- They had found, by experience, that they were gaged: much blood had been shed, yet the war not safe within a javelin's throw of the Lacehad not been brought a step nearer to an issue, dæmonian heavy infantry; for, even at that and the only important object hitherto attained distance, they had on one occasion been overwas the recall of Agesilaus. The belligerents taken by some of the younger soldiers. The were growing weary, and yet were not willing Spartans even ventured to laugh at the fears to withdraw from the contest; but, instead of of their allies, which they probably observed putting forth their whole strength in joint ex-with complacency, as evidence of their own peditions, and running the risk of general actions, they contented themselves with an easier and safer, though a wasteful and bootless kind of warfare. Two important consequences of the long series of hostilities in which all the superiority. A Lacedæmonian mora, stationed at Lechæum, accompanied by the Corinthian exiles, ranged the country round about Corinth without interruption; yet it was not able to prevent the Athenians from repairing the breach which Praxitas had made in the * Xenophon, with his usual brevity, omits to explain Long Walls, which they regarded as a barrier how these ladders were procured, as he frequently neglects that screened Attica from invasion. The whole minute circumstances necessary to the clearness of his nar-serviceable population of Athens, with a comrative: for instance, iv., 4, 5, TOù Kiovos-where Schneider's remark, that there were many pillars in the Acroco-pany of carpenters and masons, sallied forth to rinthus, does not account for the article-and iii., 3, 8, T Yovaika. But it is quite clear that these ladders were not let down by the Corinthians in the city from the city walls. The wall (ro rixos) which the Argives scaled is plainly distinguished from the city wall (6 Eρi Tò aσTU KUKλos); nor was there any reason why they should have killed themselves by jumping down the city wall, which was guarded by their friends the Isthmus, and, having restored the western wall in a few days, completed the other at their leisure. Their work, however, was destroyed, in the course of the same summer, by Agesi laus, on his return from an expedition which he had made into Argolis, for the purpose of ཀ་ལ CAPTURE OF PIREUM.-DEFEAT OF THE MORA. 571 letting the Argives taste the fruits of the war | the morning the garrison of Piræum, seeing the which they had helped to stir, and were most enemy above them, considered resistance as forward to keep up. After having carried his hopeless, and evacuated the fortress with the ravages into every part of their territory, he women, slaves, and all the property that had marched to Corinth, stormed the newly-repair- been sheltered there, and took refuge in a neighed walls, and recovered Lechæum. Here he bouring sanctuary of Here, which lay nearer to met his brother Teleutias, who, through his in- the seaside. But after the troops on the heights fluence, which in this case was better exerted above Piræum had descended and taken the than in that of Pisander, had been appointed to fortress of Enoe on the north, and Agesilaus the command of the fleet; and, having come had come up from the opposite side, the fugiwith a small squadron to support his opera- tives in the Heræum surrendered to him untions, made some prizes in the harbour and the conditionally. Among them were some of the docks. persons implicated in the massacre at Corinth. These he gave up to the vengeance of the exiles; the rest, with all their property, he exposed to sale. But the appearance of Teleutias in the Corinthian Gulf was connected with other events, more important than any which took place in Peloponnesus after the return of Agesilaus from Asia. That we may exhibit them in an uninterrupted series, together with their consequences, we shall follow Xenophon's order, and return to them after having briefly related how the war was carried on in Greece, in the campaigns which ensued down to its close. The captures and the booty were brought out, and passed in review before Agesilaus, as he sat in an adjacent building on the margin of a small lake. His triumph was heightened by the presence of envoys from various states, among the rest, from Thebes, where the party which desired peace had succeeded in procuring an In the spring of 392, Agesilaus made a fresh. embassy to be sent for the purpose of ascerexpedition for the purpose of bringing the Co- taining the terms which Sparta would grant. rinthians to terms, by cutting off one of their Agesilaus, the more fully to enjoy their humilichief resources. The fortress of Piræum, at ation, affected to take no notice of their presthe foot of Mount Geranea, on the western gulf,tence, while Pharax, their proxenus, stood by afforded shelter for the flocks and herds which him, waiting for an opportunity to present them. were transported into its precincts from other Just at this juncture a horseman came up, his parts of the Corinthian territory, and maintain-horse covered with foam, and informed the king ed a numerous garrison, and the whole surrounding district had hitherto been exempt from the ravages of war. There was a prospect of at once gaining a rich booty, and striking a blow which would reduce the enemy to great distress; more especially as this was the easiest road by which the Baotians could send their succours to Corinth. Agesilaus, perhaps by design, arrived at the Isthmus at the season of the Isthmian games, which the Argives were celebrating in the name of Corinth, the legitimate president. They were in the midst of the sacrifice, when the Lacedæmonian army appeared, and immediately abandoning all their preparations for the festival, fled to the city. Agesilaus remained encamped on the Isthmus, while the Corinthian exiles completed the sacrifice, and presided over the games, and then marched towards Piræum. After his departure the Argives celebrated the games afresh, in which it was observed that many of the late competitors returned to the contest, and that some were again successful. Agesilaus found Piræum so strongly garrisoned, that he did not venture to attack it, until, by feigning an intention of marching upon Corinth, so as to raise a suspicion of a secret understanding with a party in the city, he had drawn away most of the garrison, and among the rest, the greater part of the corps of Iphicrates. As soon as they had passed his camp and though it was night, he perceived their movements—he only waited for daybreak to return towards Piræum, and the following evening detached a mora to occupy the heights which commanded it, while he encamped with the rest of his troops below. In *Plut., Ages., 21. To be carefully distinguished from the desert harbour of Pireus, at the other extremity of the Corinthian territory on the Saronic Gulf, which we have had occasion to mention above, p. 440. It is strange that Schneider should intimate a doubt on this subject. of a disaster which had just befallen the garrison of Lechæum, the loss of almost a whole mora, which had been intercepted and cut off by Iphicrates and his targeteers. The action was in itself so trifling, that it would scarcely have deserved mention, but for the importance attached to it at the time, and the celebrity which it retained for many generations. The occasion, however, was remarkable on another account. The inhabitants of the Laconian canton of Amycle never permitted any engagement, civil or military, to prevent them from attending the Hyacinthian festival. As this festival was approaching at the time when Agesilaus was on his march against Piræum, he had left all the Amyclæans in his army at Lechaum, to be sent home; and the commander of the garrison had escorted them with a mora of infantry and a troop of cavalry on their way through the enemy's territory. But deeming himself secure from attack, he had permitted the cavalry to accompany them a little farther than he went himself, while he returned towards Lechæum with the infantry. The movements of this little band were observed from Corinth, where, in addition to the ordinary force of the place, there was a body of Athenian heavy infantry, under Callias, son of Hipponicus, and Iphicrates had arrived with his targeteers. Callias and Iphicrates undertook to cut off the enemy's retreat. The infantry was drawn up not far from the city; the active service fell upon Iphicrates. Notwithstanding the terror with which, according to Xenophon, the Lacedæmonians had inspired his men, they did not now fear to venture within a javelin's throw of the enemy, and the Lacedæmonians, when galled by their missiles, were no longer able to overtake them, but only exposed themselves to increasing loss, while they spent their strength in repeated attempts for that purpose. An ex |