seem to prove that it was begun more out of ill-temper than as a consequent of any definite plan; for the peace was ratified in Lacedaemon with the other cities on the fourteenth of the month Skirophorion; and on the fifth of the next month, Hekatombaeon, only twenty days afterwards, the Spartans were defeated at Leuktra.  A thousand Lacedaemonians perished, among them Kleombrotus the king, and with him the flower of the best families in Sparta.  There fell also the handsome son of Sphodrias, Kleonymus, who fought before the king, and was thrice struck to the ground and rose again before he was slain by the Thebans.

XXIX.  In spite of the unparalleled disaster which had befallen the Lacedaemonians, for the Theban victory was the most complete ever won by one Greek state over another, the courage of the vanquished is nevertheless as much to be admired as that of the victors.  Xenophon remarks that the conversation of good and brave men, even when jesting or sitting at table, is always worth remembering, and it is much more valuable to observe how nobly all really brave and worthy men bear themselves when in sorrow and misfortune.  When the news of the defeat at Leuktra arrived at Sparta, the city was celebrating the festival of the Gymnopaedia, and the chorus of grown men was going through its usual solemnity in the theatre.  The Ephors, although the news clearly proved that all was lost and the state utterly ruined, yet would not permit the chorus to abridge its performance, and forbade the city to throw off its festal appearance.  They privately communicated the names of the slain to their relatives, but they themselves calmly continued to preside over the contest of the choruses in the theatre, and brought the festival to a close as though nothing unusual had occurred.  Next morning, when all men knew who had fallen and who had survived, one might see those whose relations had been slain, walking about in public with bright and cheerful countenances:  but of those whose relatives survived, scarce one showed himself in public, but they sat at home with the women, as if mourning for the dead; or if any one of them was forced to come forth, he looked mournful and humbled, and walked with cast-down eyes.  Yet more admirable was the conduct of the women, for one might see mothers receiving their sons who had survived the battle with silence and sorrow, while those whose children had fallen proceeded to the temples to return thanks to the gods, and walked about the city with a proud and cheerful demeanour.

XXX.  Yet, when their allies deserted them, and when the victorious Epameinondas, excited by his success, was expected to invade Peloponnesus, many Spartans remembered the oracle about the lameness of Agesilaus, and were greatly disheartened and cast down, fearing that they had incurred the anger of Heaven, and that the misfortunes of the city were due to their own conduct in having excluded the sound man from the throne, and chosen the lame one; the very thing which