etter in the fight that nation should possess the disputed land: they
agreed moreover that the main body of each army should withdraw to their
own country, and not stand by while the contest was fought, for fear
lest, if the armies were present, one side seeing their countrymen
suffering defeat should come up to their support. Having made this
agreement they withdrew; and chosen men of both sides were left behind
and engaged in fight with one another. So they fought and proved
themselves to be equally matched; and there were left at last of six
hundred men three, on the side of the Argives Alkenor and Chromios, and
on the side of the Lacedemonians Othryades: these were left alive when
night came on. So then the two men of the Argives, supposing that
they were the victors, set off to run to Argos, but the Lacedemonian
Othryades, after having stripped the corpses of the Argives and carried
their arms to his own camp, remained in his place. On the next day both
the two sides came thither to inquire about the result; and for some
time both claimed the victory for themselves, the one side saying that
of them more had remained alive, and the others declaring that these had
fled away, whereas their own man had stood his ground and had stripped
the corpses of the other party: and at length by reason of this dispute
they fell upon one another and began to fight; and after many had fallen
on both sides, the Lacedemonians were the victors. The Argives then cut
their hair short, whereas formerly they were compelled by law to wear
it long, and they made a law with a curse attached to it, that from that
time forth no man of the Argives should grow the hair long nor their
women wear ornaments of gold, until they should have won back Thyrea.
The Lacedemonians however laid down for themselves the opposite law to
this, namely that they should wear long hair from that time forward,
whereas before that time they had not their hair long. And they say that
the one man who was left alive of the three hundred, namely Othryades,
being ashamed to to Sparta when all his comrades had been slain, slew
himself there in Thyrea.

83. Such was the condition of things at Sparta when the herald from
Sardis arrived asking them to come to the assistance of Croesus, who was
being besieged. And they notwithstanding their own difficulties, as
soon as they heard the news from the herald, were eager to go to his
assistance; but when they had completed their prep