ty befel them which
astonished all their neighbours. A division of the army of Agesilaus was
cut off and destroyed almost to a man; and this exploit, which seemed
almost portentous to the Greeks of that age, was achieved by Iphicrates,
at the head of a body of mercenary light infantry. But it was from the
day of Leuctya that the fall of Spate became rapid and violent. Some
time before that day the Thebans had resolved to follow the example
set many years before by the Argives. Some hundreds of athletic youths,
carefully selected, were set apart, under the names of the City Band and
the Sacred Band, to form a standing army. Their business was war. They
encamped in the citadel; they were supported at the expense of the
community; and they became, under assiduous training, the first soldiers
in Greece. They were constantly victorious till they were opposed
to Philip's admirably disciplined phalanx at Charonea; and even at
Chaeronea they were not defeated but slain in their ranks, fighting to
the last. It was this band, directed by the skill of great captains,
which gave the decisive blow to the Lacedaemonian power. It is to be
observed that there was no degeneracy among the Lacedaemonians. Even
down to the time of Pyrrhus they seem to have been in all military
qualities equal to their ancestors who conquered at Plataea. But their
ancestors at Plataea had not such enemies to encounter.]

[Footnote 3: L'Hermitage, Dec. 3/13 7/17, 1697.]

[Footnote 4: Commons' Journals, Dec. 3. 1697. L'Hermitage, Dec 7/17.]

[Footnote 5: L'Hermitage, Dec. 15/24., Dec. 14/24., Journals.]

[Footnote 6: The first act of Farquhar's Trip to the Jubilee, the
passions which about his time agitated society are exhibited with much
spirit. Alderman Smuggler sees Colonel Standard and exclaims, "There's
another plague of the nation a red coat and feather." "I'm disbanded,"
says the Colonel. "This very morning, in Hyde Park, my brave regiment, a
thousand men that looked like lions yesterday, were scattered and looked
as poor and simple as the herd of deer that grazed beside them." "Fal al
deral!" cries the Alderman: "I'll have a bonfire this night, as high as
the monument." "A bonfire!" answered the soldier; "then dry, withered,
ill nature! had not those brave fellows' swords' defended you, your
house had been a bonfire ere this about your ears."]

[Footnote 7: L'Hermitage, January 11/21]

[Footnote 8: That a portion at least of the native population