, the top
of the pass was reached, there stood the hoplites of the Acarnanians
drawn up in battle line, and supported by the mass of their light
infantry. There they steadily waited, keeping up a continuous discharge
of missiles the while, or launching their long spears; whereby they
dealt wounds to the cavalry troopers and death in some cases to the
horses. But when they were all but within the clutches of the advancing
heavy infantry (8) of the Lacedaemonians their firmness forsook them;
they swerved and fled, and there died of them on that day about three
hundred. So ended the affair.

(7) I.e. "the first two ranks." See above, IV. v. 14.

(8) See "Ages." ii. 20, for an extraordinary discrepancy.

Agesilaus set up a trophy of victory, and afterwards making a tour of
the country, he visited it with fire and sword. (9) Occasionally, in
obedience to pressure put upon him by the Achaeans, he would assault
some city, but did not capture a single one. And now, as the season of
autumn rapidly approached, he prepared to leave the country; whereupon
the Achaeans, who looked upon his exploits as abortive, seeing that not
a single city, willingly or unwillingly, had as yet been detached from
their opponents, begged him, as the smallest service he could render
them, at any rate to stay long enough in the country to prevent the
Acarnanians from sowing their corn. He answered that the course they
suggested ran counter to expediency. "You forget," he said, "that I mean
to invade your enemies again next summer; and therefore the larger their
sowing now, the stronger will be their appetite for peace hereafter."
With this retort he withdrew overland through Aetolia, and by roads,
moreover, which no army, small or great, could possibly have traversed
without the consent of the inhabitants. The Aetolians, however, were
only too glad to yield the Spartan king a free passage, cherishing hopes
as they did that he would aid them to recover Naupactus. On reaching
Rhium (10) he crossed the gulf at that point and returned homewards,
the more direct passage from Calydon to Peloponnesus being effectually
barred by an Athenian squadron stationed at Oeniadae.

(9) Or lit. "burning and felling."

(10) Or Antirrhium (as more commonly called).

VII

B.C. 389-388. (1) On the expiration of winter, and in fulfilment of his
promise to the Achaeans, Agesilaus called out the ban once more with
early spring to invade the Acarnanians. The lat