Battle of Leuctra

When the Phocian war began—not by my fault, for I was still outside politics—you were at first disposed to hope that the Phocians would escape ruin, although you knew that they were in the wrong, and to exult over any misfortune that might befall the Thebans, with whom you were justly and reasonably indignant because of the immoderate use they had made of the advantage they gained at Leuctra.

but when the Thebans, after their victory at Leuctra, threatened to exterminate them, you balked that revenge, without fear of the prowess and high repute of the Thebans, without thought of the past misdeeds of the people for whom you imperilled yourselves.

"For when the Lacedaemonians were defeated at Leuctra by the Thebans, the Thebans, having marched into the Peloponnese with their allies, compelled the Lacedaemonians to give back the Messenian land, and all who were born of those who formerly served among the Lacedaemonians, those called Helots, they settled again in Messene.

and that this company, named the Sacred Band, prevailed over the Lacedaemonians in the battle at Leuctra, all the Greeks following those men;

— so, when peace was made in the archonship of Phrasicleides, and the battle was fought at Leuctra between the Thebans and the Lacedaemonians, this man Stephanus, having at the time come to Megara and having put up at Neaera’s house, as at the house of a courtesan, and having had intercourse with her, she told him all that had taken place and her brutal treatment by Phrynion.

Did they not rob the Eleans of part of their territory, did they not lay waste the land of the Corinthians, did they not disperse the Mantineans from their homes, did they not reduce the Phliasians by siege, and did they not invade the country of the Argives, never ceasing from their depredations upon the rest of the world and so bringing upon themselves the disaster at Leuctra?

The Lacedaemonians were the leaders of the Hellenes, not long ago, on both land and sea, and yet they suffered so great a reversal of fortune when they met defeat at Leuctra that they were deprived of their power over the Hellenes, and lost such of their warriors as chose to die rather than survive defeat at the hands of those over whom they had once been masters.

In addition the slaves and many of the outlander communities were in revolt, and at least as many of the Spartan nobles had fallen in the battle of Leuctra as survived.

On the other hand, after the disaster at Leuctra, when his adversaries in league with the Mantineans were murdering his friends and acquaintances in Tegea, and a coalition of all Boeotia, Arcadia and Elis had been formed, he took the field with the Lacedaemonian forces only, thus disappointing the general expectation that the Lacedaemonians would not even go outside their own borders for a long time to come.

As for the Thebans, immediately after the battle they sent to Athens a garlanded messenger, and while telling of the greatness of their victory, they at the same time urged the Athenians to come to their aid, saying that now it was possible to take vengeance upon the Lacedaemonians for all the harm they had done to them.

Again, when both sides were arming themselves and it was already evident that there would be a battle, in the first place, after those who had provided the market and some baggage-carriers and such as did not wish to fight had set out to withdraw from the Boeotian army, the Lacedaemonian mercenaries under Hieron, the peltasts of the Phocians, and, among the horsemen, the Heracleots and Phliasians …

For all the Boeotians were now training themselves in the craft of arms, glorying in their victory at Leuctra;