After the battle, they appear to have remained together for a time, but there was no one among them able to undertake the command. Meantime, as a report had reached Sparta, that the Bœotians offered resistance, another Spartan army, under Archidamus, a son of Agesilaus, had marched across the Isthmus, and was now approaching, but found the Spartans already defeated. All he could do was to collect the remains of the defeated army and to return with them. They seem to have effected their retreat under the protection of a truce. The only auxiliaries of the Thebans in the battle of Leuctra, had been the Thessalian troops of prince Jason of Pheræ: one of the phenomena of an age, when the old order of things has disappeared, and new institutions have been formed.
If we believe Diodorus, the battle of Leuctra was the direct punishment for perjury: for Cleombrotus, it is said, had concluded a truce with the Thebans, but on the arrival of reinforcements from Peloponnesus, he broke it. One of the narratives must be untrue, either his or that of Xenophon; if the reinforcements under Archidamus arrived before the battle, Xenophon’s account must necessarily be given up. Cleombrotus may have had the peculiar misfortune, which happens to many a one who has been unsuccessful; all that is bad and disgraceful is attributed to him. What makes us still more inclined to disbelieve the account of Diodorus is, that if Archidamus had been present at the battle, it could not have been said that after the battle the Spartan army was without a commander. Diodorus probably too eagerly caught up an account which throws the blame upon the Spartans; it was invented either by Ephorus or by Callisthenes.
The loss of the Spartans in the battle is very differently stated. According to one account, it amounted to 4000 men, which would include, besides the Lacedæmonians and Spartans, all the other allies; others mention only 1000 slain, which number would comprise the Lacedæmonians only; others again estimate their number at 1700; but this last number is erroneous, as has been correctly observed by Schneider in a note on Xenophon, and arose from a hasty glance at the numbers written in the characters of the Greek alphabet. We may take it for granted that not less than 1000 Lacedæmonians fell in the battle; but whether this number also comprised the Spartans or not, is a question which cannot be answered at all. But it is a fact, that the number of the Spartans was so extremely small, that the strength of the Spartan citizens as a body was completely paralysed by the loss of this battle. At one time there had been 9000 citizens, subsequently they are said to have amounted to 8000, but at this time there cannot have been 1000 real citizens, and at a still later time there were only 700. At Leuctra several hundreds of them fell. The ancient Spartan citizens were certainly not more numerous than the nobili of Venice. They now had to feel the consequences of their wretched selfish policy, which had been so jealous in granting the franchise to the periœci, as to exclude a great many excellent men as unfit and unworthy, and had cut them off from every prospect of obtaining it.
All Greece was startled at the news of this victory; it seemed impossible that Sparta should have been beaten in the field. The Spartans themselves were quite dejected. Their allies turned their backs upon them, and in a moment all the states of Peloponnesus, which had hitherto followed their standards, threw up their connection with them, and declared themselves independent; the Phocians, Locrians, and other allies beyond the Isthmus, immediately concluded a peace and alliance with the Bœotians. Not eighteen months passed away, perhaps it was even in the very winter after the battle of Leuctra, when the Bœotians invaded Peloponnesus. The Spartans were panic-stricken and retreated. The Bœotians announced themselves as the protectors of liberty, and there can be no doubt that the personal character and the eminent qualities of Epaminondas everywhere excited great confidence, while the national character of the Thebans would certainly have called forth the opposite feeling.[b]
SIGNIFICANCE OF LEUCTRA
The battle of Leuctra was certainly one of those battles which are decisive of the fate of countries and which give history a new turn. It not only brought to the fore a leader of singular magnificence at the head of a new and zealous nation, but it saw the complete collapse of Sparta. It made possible the first invasion of that country which, being without walls, had felt itself girt about with imperishable granite in the brawn of its soldiery. The other nations of Greece for all their hatred of Sparta had never succeeded in invading her. It was considered glory enough to sail around the Peloponnesus or to establish a stronghold upon some portion of the coast. It remained for a Theban newcomer, whom Xenophon does not even mention in his account of the battle of Leuctra, to march into Sparta and prove that her granite wall of soldiery was only a superstition that crumbled before the onslaught of that new Theban formation which modern foot-ball players have revived and called “the flying-wedge.”
Greek Vase
(In the British Museum)