[622] “The plain of Oropus (observes Col. Leake) expands from its upper angle at Oropó towards the mouth of the Asopus, and stretches about five miles along the shore, from the foot of the hills of Markópulo on the east to the village of Khalkúki on the west, where begin some heights extending westward towards Dhilisi, the ancient Delium.”—“The plain of Oropus is separated from the more inland plain of Tanagra by rocky gorges through which the Asopus flows.” (Leake, Athens and the Demi of Attica, vol. ii. sect. iv, p. 112.)
[623] Thucyd. iv, 93; v, 38. Akræphiæ may probably be considered as either a dependency of Thebes, or included in the general expression of Thucydidês, after the word Κωπαιῆς—οἱ περὶ τὴν λίμνην. Anthêdon and Lebadeia, which are recognized as separate autonomous townships in various Bœotian inscriptions, are not here named in Thucydidês. But there is no certain evidence respecting the number of immediate members of the Bœotian confederacy: compare the various conjectures in Boeckh, ad Corp. Inscript. tom. i, p. 727; O. Müller, Orchomenus, p. 402; Kruse, Hellas, tom. ii, p. 548.
[624] Thucyd. iv, 91. τῶν ἄλλων Βοιωταρχῶν, οἵ εἰσιν ἕνδεκα, οὐ ξυνεπαινούντων μάχεσθαι, etc.
The use of the present tense εἰσιν marks the number eleven as that of all the bœotarchs; at this time, according to Boeckh’s opinion, ad Corp. Inscript. i, vol. i, p. 729. The number, however, appears to have been variable.
[625] Thucyd. iv, 91. προσκαλῶν ἑκάστους κατὰ λόχους, ὅπως μὴ ἁθρόοι ἐκλίποιεν τὰ ὅπλα, ἔπειθε τοὺς Βοιωτοὺς ἰέναι ἐπὶ τοὺς Ἀθηναίους καὶ τὸν ἀγῶνα ποιεῖσθαι.
Here Dr. Arnold observes: “This confirms and illustrates what has been said in the note on ii, 2, 5, as to the practice of the Greek soldiers piling their arms the moment they halted in a particular part of the camp, and always attending the speeches of their general without them.”
In the case here before us, it appears that the Bœotians did come by separate lochi, pursuant to command, to hear the words of Pagondas, and also that each lochus left its arms to do so; though even here it is not absolutely certain that τὰ ὅπλα does not mean the military station, as Dukas interprets it. But Dr. Arnold generalizes too hastily from hence to a customary practice as between soldiers and their general. The proceeding of the Athenian general Hippokratês, on this very occasion, near Delium, to be noticed a page or two forward, exhibits an arrangement totally different. Moreover, the note on ii, 2, 5, to which Dr. Arnold refers, has no sort of analogy to the passage here before us, which does not include the words τίθεσθαι τὰ ὅπλα; whereas these words are the main matters in chapter ii, 2, 5. Whoever attentively compares the two, will see that Dr. Arnold, followed by Poppo and Göller, has stretched an explanation which suits the passage here before us to other passages where it is no way applicable.
[626] Thucyd. iv, 92.
[627] Thucyd. iv, 93. ἐπ᾽ ἀσπίδας δὲ πέντε μὲν καὶ εἴκοσι Θηβαῖοι ἐτάξαντο, οἱ δὲ ἄλλοι ὡς ἕκαστοι ἔτυχον.
What is still more remarkable, in the battle of Mantincia, in 418 B.C. between the Lacedæmonians on one side and the Athenians, Argeians, Mantincians, etc., on the other, the different lochi or divisions of the Lacedæmonian army were not all marshalled in the same depth of files. Each lochage, or commander of the lochus, directed the depth of his own division (Thucyd. v, 68).