THE BATTLE OF CORONEA
According to the usual manner of war among the Greeks, when the armies approached a battle soon followed. On the present occasion both quitted advantageous ground; Agesilaus moving from the bank of the Cephissus, and the confederates from the roots of Helicon, to meet in a plain. Perfect silence was observed by both armies till within nearly a furlong of each other, when the confederates gave the military shout, and advanced running. At a somewhat smaller distance the opposite army ran to meet the charge. The Lacedæmonians, on its right, where Agesilaus took post, instantly overthrew the Argives, their immediate opponents, who, scarcely waiting the assault, fled toward Helicon. The Cyreans supported in Greece the reputation they had acquired in Asia; and were so emulated by the Ionians, Æolians, and Hellespontines, from whom less was expected, that, all coming to push of spear together, they compelled the centre of the confederate army to retreat. The victory seemed so decided that some of the Asiatics were for paying Agesilaus the usual compliment of crowning on the occasion; when information was brought him, that the Thebans had routed the Orchomenians, who held the extreme of his left wing, and had penetrated to the baggage. Immediately changing his front, he proceeded toward them.
The Thebans perceived they were cut off from their allies, who had already fled far from the field. It was a common practice of the Thebans to charge in column, directing their assault, not against the whole, but a chosen point of the enemy’s line. Thus they had gained the battle of Delium against the Athenians, in the eighth year of the Peloponnesian War. To such a formation their able leaders had recourse now; resolving upon the bold attempt to pierce the line of the conquering Lacedæmonians; not any longer with the hope of victory, but with the view to join their defeated allies in retreat. Xenophon praises the bravery, evidently not without meaning some reflection on the judgment, of Agesilaus; who chose to engage them, he says, front to front, when, if he had opened his line and given them passage, their flanks and rear would have been exposed to him.
Ruins of Ancient Wall, at Cora
(With Modern Structure Superimposed)
A most fierce conflict ensued. Shield pressed against shield, stroke was returned for stroke; amid wounds and death no clamour was heard; neither, says the historian, who accompanied the Spartan king, was there complete silence, for the mutterings of rage were mixed with the din of weapons. The perseverance, the discipline, and the skill in arms of the Thebans were such, and such the force of their solid column, that, after many had fallen, a part actually pierced the Lacedæmonian line, and reached the highlands of Helicon; but the greater part, compelled to retreat, were mostly put to the sword. In this obstinate action Agesilaus was severely wounded. His attendants were bearing him from the field when a party of horse came to ask orders concerning about eighty Thebans, who, with their arms, had reached a temple. Mindful, amid his suffering, of respect due to the deity, he commanded that liberty should be granted to them to pass unhurt, whithersoever they pleased. In the philosopher-historian’s manner of relating this anecdote is implied that, among the Greeks, in such circumstances, revenge would have prompted an ordinary mind; and, even in Agesilaus, the generous action is attributed, not to humanity, but to superstition; not to an opinion of the deity’s regard for mercy and charity among men, but to the fear, unless it were rather the desire of inculcating the fear, of his resentment for any want of respectful attention to himself. When pursuit ended, the victorious army anxiously employed itself in dragging the enemy’s slain within its own lines: a remarkable testimony, from the same great writer, to the prevalence still, in a degree that may surprise us, of that barbarism in war, which in Homer’s description is striking, though in his age less a matter for wonder.
Next morning early the troops were ordered to parade with arms, all wearing chaplets. Agesilaus himself being unable to attend, the polemarch Gylis commanded at the ceremony of raising the trophy; which was performed with all the music of the army playing, and every circumstance of pomp, that might most inspire, among the soldiery, alacrity and self-satisfaction.
Why then no measures were taken to profit from the advantages, which victory apparently should have laid open, is not shown. The Thebans sending, in usual form, for permission to bury their dead, a truce was granted them, evidently for a longer time than for that purpose alone, could be wanted. Meanwhile the Lacedæmonian army withdrew into Phocis, a country friendly or neutral, to perform a ceremony to which Grecian superstition indeed attached much importance, the dedication of the tenth of the spoil collected by Agesilaus in his Asiatic command. It amounted to a hundred talents; perhaps something more than twenty thousand pounds.
After this second triumphal rite the army, committed to the orders of Gylis, proceeded into the neighbouring hostile province of Ozolian Locris, where the object seems to have been little more than to collect plunder, which, according to the Grecian manner, might serve the soldiers instead of pay. Corn, goods, whatever the rapacious troops could find in the villages, were taken. The Locrians, unable to prevent the injury, did nevertheless what they best could to revenge it. Occupying the defiles which, in returning into Phocis, were necessarily to be repassed, they gave such annoyance that Gylis was provoked to take the command of a select body in pursuit of them.
Entangled among the mountains, he was himself killed, and the whole party would have been cut off, had not the officers left with the command of the main body brought seasonable relief. Agesilaus, still from his wounds unfit for fatigue, passed by sea to Laconia, and the army was distributed in quarters.
If any other writer had ever given any authority for the supposition, we might suspect that Xenophon’s account of the battle of Coronea was written under the influence of partiality for his friend and patron, and that the victory was less complete than he has described it.[10] Yet we are not without information of circumstances which may have given occasion for the line of conduct which Agesilaus pursued. The defeat of Cnidus produced a great and rapid revolution in Asiatic Greece.
And thus the fabric of the Lacedæmonian empire, seemingly so established by the event of the Peloponnesian War, and since so extended by the ability of the commanders in Asia, was in large proportion almost instantly overthrown.
Most of the principal officers, and many inferior men, of the numerous Asiatic troops under Agesilaus, would be deeply interested in this revolution. The principal sources of pay for all would cease; and hence the plain of Coronea seems to have been the last field of fame for the Cyreans. We find no mention of them afterwards from Xenophon: apparent proof that their following fortunes were not brilliant; not such as he could have any satisfaction in reporting. Probably they dispersed, some to their homes, some to seek new service, and never more assembled.[b]