FOOTNOTES:
[52] From Book VI of the "Hellenica." At Leuctra, which lies near Thebes in Bœtia, Epaminondas commanding the Bœotians, overwhelmed the Spartans under Cleombrotus. From this event dates the decline of Sparta.
IV
OF THE ARMY OF THE SPARTANS[53]
The regulations which I have mentioned are beneficial alike in peace and in war; but if any one wishes to learn what the lawgiver contrived better than other legislators with reference to military proceedings, he may attend to the following particulars:
In the first place, then, the ephors give the cavalry and infantry public notice of the years during which they must join the army, as well as the artizans; for the Lacedæmonians provide themselves in the field with an abundance of all those things which people use in a city; and of whatever instruments an army may require in common, orders are given to bring some on wagons and others on beasts of burden, as by this arrangement anything left behind is least likely to escape notice.
For engagements in the field he made the following arrangements: He ordered that each soldier should have a purple robe and a brazen shield; for he thought that such a dress had least resemblance to that of women, and was excellently adapted for the field of battle, as it is soonest made splendid, and is longest in growing soiled. He permitted also those above the age of puberty to let their hair grow, as he thought that they thus appeared taller, more manly, and more terrible in the eyes of the enemy.
When they were thus equipped, he divided them into six moræ of cavalry and heavy-armed infantry. Each of these moræ of the citizens has one polemarch, four centurions, eight captains of fifty, and sixteen enomotarchs. The men of these moræ are sometimes, according to the command issued, formed in enomotiæ, sometimes by threes, sometimes by sixes. As to what most people imagine, that the arrangement of the Lacedæmonians under arms is extremely complex, they conceive the exact contrary to what is the fact; for in the Lacedæmonian order the officers are placed in the front ranks, and each rank is in a condition to perform everything which it is necessary for it to perform. So easy is it to understand this arrangement that no one who can distinguish one man from another would fail of learning it; for it is assigned to some to lead, and enjoined on others to follow. Shiftings of place, by which the companies are extended or deepened, are ordered by the word of the enomotarch, as by a herald; and in these there is nothing in the least difficult to learn.