Clearchus and his friends had enough to talk about as they walked down from the temple.
"One thing is certain," said the young Athenian. "We must go at once to Thebes."
"That we must do if only to see the fighting," Leonidas replied.
"What if the Dragon's Teeth should win?" Eresthenes suggested.
"They cannot," Leonidas said. "The man who could make the march that Alexander made is a general as well as a king. There is no Epaminondas in Thebes now."
"What will become of Chares' mother and his family if the city falls?" Clearchus exclaimed, stopping short.
"Have I not heard him say that his father formed a guest-friendship with Philip when the Macedonian was left in Thebes as a hostage?" Leonidas replied.
"Yes," Clearchus admitted, "but that may be forgotten by his son if all they say concerning Philip's death be true."
"Then we must remind him," Leonidas said, "and that is another reason why we must go to Thebes."
Eresthenes gave the young men a cordial good-speed when they left him in the morning to set out for the beleaguered city. They descended from the mountains and entered the fertile plains of Bœotia, through which they rode all day without finding a sign of war. The farmers went about their work and the shepherds were pasturing their flocks as peacefully as though there were no such things as armies and slaughter. More than once they stopped to ask news of the siege, but the people of the plain could tell them nothing. Many of them had not heard that Alexander was before the city; others had indeed heard the rumor, but convinced that they themselves were safe, they took no interest in it.