"WILLIAM THE THIRD.

17

The same lesson Somers drew from the history ofKome;and every scholar who really understands that history will

of Somors. The first great humiliation which befel the Lacedemonianswas the affair of Spliacteria. It is remarkable that on this occasionthey were vanquished by men who made a trade of war. The forcewhich Cleon carried out with him from Athens to the Bay of Pylos,and to which the event of the conflict is to bo chiefly ascribed, con-sisted entirely of mercenaries, — archers from Scythia and light in-fantry from Thrace. The victory gained by the Lacedemonians overa great confederate army at Tegea retrieved that military reputationwhich the disaster of Spliacteria had impaired. Yet even at Tegea itwas signally proved that the Lacedaemonians, though far superior tooccasional soldiers, were not equal to professional soldiers. On everypoint but one the allies were put to rout; but on one point the Lace-daemonians gave way; and that was the point where they were opposedto a brigade of a thousand Argives, picked men, whom the state towhich they belonged had during many years trained to war at thepublic charge, and who were, in fact, a standing army. After the battleof Tegea, many years elapsed before the Lacedemonians sustaineda defeat. At length a calamity befel them which astonished all theirneighbours. A division of the army of Agesilaus was cut off and de-stroyed almost to a man; and this exploit, which seemed almost por-tentous to the Greeks of that age, was achieved by Iphicratcs, at thehead of a body of mercenary light infantry. But it was from the dayof Leuctra that the fall of Sparta became rapid and violent. Some timebefore that day the Thebans had resolved to follow the example whichhad been set many years before by the Argives. Some hundrods ofathletic youths, carefully selected, were set apart, under the names ofthe City Band and the Sacred Band, to form a standing army. Theirbusiness was war. They encamped in the citadel; they were supportedat the expense of the community; and they became, under assiduoustraining, tho first soldiers in Greece. They were constantly victorioustill they were opposed to Philip’s admirably disciplined phalanx atCheronea; and even at Cheronea they were not defeated, but slain intheir ranks, fighting to the last. It was this band, directed by the skillof great captains, which gave the decisive blow to the Lacedemonianpower. It is to be observed that there was no degeneracy among theLacedaemonians. Even down to the time of Pyrrhus they seem to havebeen in all military qualities equal to their ancestors who conquered atPlatea. But their ancestors atPlatea had not such enemies to encounter.

Macaulay, History. IX. 2

CHAP*

xxm.

1U97.