within... routed..."

At this point no one will dispute the valour of Agesilaus, but he
certainly did not choose the safest course. It was open to him to make
way for the enemy to pass, which done, he might have hung upon his heels
and mastered his rear. This, however, he refused to do, preferring to
crash full front against the Thebans. Thereupon, with close interlock
of shield wedged in with shield, they shoved, they fought, they dealt
death, (19) they breathed out life, till at last a portion of the
Thebans broke their way through towards Helicon, but paid for that
departure by the loss of many lives. And now the victory of Agesilaus
was fairly won, and he himself, wounded, had been carried back to the
main line, when a party of horse came galloping up to tell him that
something like eighty of the enemy, under arms, were sheltering under
the temple, and they asked what they ought to do. Agesilaus, though he
was covered with wounds, did not, for all that, forget his duty to God.
He gave orders to let them retire unscathed, and would not suffer any
injury to be done to them. And now, seeing it was already late, they
took their suppers and retired to rest.

(19) Or, "they slew, they were slain." In illustration of this famous
passage, twice again worked up in "Ages." ii. 12, and "Cyrop."
VII. i. 38, commented on by Longinus, {peri upsous}, 19, and
copied by Dio Cassius, 47, 45, I venture to quote a passage from
Mr. Rudyard Kipling, "With the Main Guard," p. 57, Mulvaney
loquitur: "The Tyrone was pushin' an' pushin' in, an' our men was
sweerin' at thim, an' Crook was workin' away in front av us all,
his sword-arm swingin' like a pump-handle an' his revolver
spittin' like a cat. But the strange thing av ut was the quiet
that lay upon. 'Twas like a fight in a dhrame--excipt for thim
that wus dead."

But with the morning Gylis the polemarch received orders to draw up the
troops in battle order, and to set up a trophy, every man crowned with a
wreath in honour of the god, and all the pipers piping. Thus they busied
themselves in the Spartan camp. On their side the Thebans sent heralds
asking to bury their dead, under a truce; and in this wise a truce was
made. Agesilaus withdrew to Delphi, where on arrival he offered to
the god a tithe of the produce of his spoils--no less than a hundred
talents. (20) Gylis the polemarch meanwhile withdrew into Phocis at the
head of his troops