it seems probable
that the Thebans were outnumbered by the Lacedaemonians. The military
genius of Epaminondas, however, compensated any inferiority of numbers
by novelty of tactics. Up to this time Grecian battles had been
uniformly conducted by a general attack in line. Epaminondas now first
adopted the manoeuvre, used with such success by Napoleon in modern
times, of concentrating heavy masses on a given point of the enemy's
array. Having formed his left wing into a dense column of 50 deep, so
that its depth was greater than its front, he directed it against the
Lacedaemonian right, containing the best troops in their army, drawn up
12 deep, and led by Cleombrotus in person. The shock was terrible.
Cleombrotus himself was mortally wounded in the onset, and with
difficulty carried off by his comrades. Numbers of his officers, as
well as of his men, were slain, and the whole wing was broken and
driven back to their camp. The loss of the Thebans was small compared
with that of the Lacedaemonians. Out of 700 Spartans in the army of
the latter, 400 had fallen; and their king also had been slain, an
event which had not occurred since the fatal day of Thermopylae.

The victory of Leuctra was gained within three weeks after the
exclusion of the Thebans from the peace of Callias. The effect of it
throughout Greece was electrical. It was everywhere felt that a new
military power had arisen--that the prestige of the old Spartan
discipline and tactics had departed. Yet at Sparta itself though the
reverse was the greatest that her arms had ever sustained, the news of
it was received with an assumption of indifference characteristic of
the people. The Ephors forbade the chorus of men, who were celebrating
in the theatre the festival of the Gymnopaedia, to be interrupted.
They contented themselves with directing the names of the slain to be
communicated to their relatives, and with issuing an order forbidding
the women to wail and mourn. Those whose friends had fallen appeared
abroad on the morrow with joyful countenances, whilst the relatives of
the survivors seemed overwhelmed with grief and shame.

Immediately after the battle the Thebans had sent to Jason of Pherae in
Thessaly to solicit his aid against the Lacedaemonians. This despot was
one of the most remarkable men of the period. He was Tagus, or
Generalissimo, of all Thessaly; and Macedonia was partially dependent
on him. He was a man of boundless ambition, a