the oracle had bidden them beware of doing.  Nevertheless, Agesilaus was so powerful in the state, and so renowned for wisdom and courage, that they gladly made use of him as their leader in the war, and also employed him to settle a certain constitutional difficulty which arose about the political rights of the survivors of the battle.  They were unwilling to disfranchise all these men, who were so numerous and powerful, because they feared that if so they would raise a revolution in the city.  For the usual rule at Sparta about those who survive a defeat is, that they are incapable of holding any office in the state; nor will any one give them his daughter in marriage; but all who meet them strike them, and treat them with contempt.  They hang about the city in a squalid and degraded condition, wearing a cloak patched with pieces of a different colour, and they shave one half of their beards, and let the other half grow.  Now, at the present crisis it was thought that to reduce so many citizens to this condition, especially when the state sorely required soldiers, would be an absurd proceeding; and consequently, Agesilaus was appointed lawgiver, to decide upon what was to be done.  He neither altered the laws, nor proposed any new ones, but laid down his office of lawgiver at once, with the remark, that the laws must be allowed to sleep for that one day, and afterwards resume their force.  By this means he both preserved the laws, retained the services of the citizens for the state, and saved them from infamy.  With the intention of cheering up the young men, and enabling them to shake off their excessive despondency, he led an army into Arcadia.  He was careful to avoid a battle, but captured a small fort belonging to the people of Mantinea, and overran their territory; thus greatly raising the spirits of the Spartans, who began to pluck up courage, and regard their city as not altogether ruined.

XXXI.  After this, Epameinondas invaded Laconia with the army of the Thebans and their allies, amounting in all to no less than forty thousand heavy-armed soldiers.  Many light troops and marauders accompanied this body, so that the whole force which entered Laconia amounted in all to seventy thousand men.  This took place not less than six hundred years after the Dorians had settled in Lacedaemon; and through all that time these were the first enemies which the country had seen; for no one before this had dared to invade it.  Now, however, the Thebans ravaged the whole district with fire and sword, and no one came out to resist them, for Agesilaus would not allow the Lacedaemonians to fight against what Theopompus calls ’such a heady torrent of war,’ but contented himself with guarding the most important parts of the city itself, disregarding the boastful threats of the Thebans, who called upon him by name to come out and fight for his country, since he was the cause of all its misfortunes, because he had begun the war.