y. Meanwhile, in Lacedaemon itself, a body of two hundred men, of
doubtful fidelity, seized the Issorium, where the temple of Artemis
stands, which is a strong and easily defensible post. The
Lacedaemonians at once wished to attack them, but Agesilaus, fearing
that some deep-laid conspiracy might break out, ordered them to remain
quiet. He himself, dressed simply in his cloak, unarmed, and attended
only by one slave, went up to the two hundred, and, in a loud voice,
told them that they had mistaken their orders; that they had not been
ordered to go thither, nor yet to go all together in a body, but that
some were to be posted _there_, pointing to some other place, and the
rest elsewhere in the city. They, hearing his commands, were
delighted, imagining that their treason was undiscovered, and
immediately marched to the places which he indicated. Agesilaus at
once occupied the Issorium with troops which he could trust, and in
the ensuing night seized and put to death fifteen of the leaders of
the two hundred. Another more important conspiracy was betrayed to
him, whose members, full Spartan citizens, were met together in one
house to arrange revolutionary schemes. At such a crisis it was
equally impossible to bring these men to a regular trial, and to allow
them to carry on their intrigues. Agesilaus therefore, after taking
the Ephors into his confidence, put them all to death untried, though
before that time no Spartan had ever been executed without a trial.

As many of the Perioeki and helots who had been entrusted with arms
escaped out of the city and deserted to the enemy, which greatly
disheartened the Spartans, he ordered his servants to visit the
quarters of these soldiers at daybreak every morning, and wherever any
one was gone, to hide his arms, so that the number of deserters might
not be known.

We are told by some historians that the Thebans left Laconia because
the weather became stormy, and their Arcadian allies began to melt
away from them. Others say that they spent three entire months in the
country, and laid nearly all of it waste. Theopompus relates that when
the Boeotarchs had decided to leave the country, Phrixus, a Spartan,
came from Agesilaus and offered them ten talents to be gone, thus
paying them for doing what they had long before determined to do of
their own accord.

XXXIII. I cannot tell, however, how it was that Theopompus discovered
this fact, and that no other historian mentions it. Al