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.
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