n Boetia, Epaminondas commanding the Boeotians,
overwhelmed the Spartans under Cleombrotus. From this event dates the
decline of Sparta.]

IV

OF THE ARMY OF THE SPARTANS[53]

The regulations which I have mentioned are beneficial alike in peace
and in war; but if any one wishes to learn what the lawgiver contrived
better than other legislators with reference to military proceedings,
he may attend to the following particulars:

In the first place, then, the ephors give the cavalry and infantry
public notice of the years during which they must join the army, as
well as the artizans; for the Lacedaemonians provide themselves in the
field with an abundance of all those things which people use in a
city; and of whatever instruments an army may require in common,
orders are given to bring some on wagons and others on beasts of
burden, as by this arrangement anything left behind is least likely to
escape notice.

For engagements in the field he made the following arrangements: He
ordered that each soldier should have a purple robe and a brazen
shield; for he thought that such a dress had least resemblance to that
of women, and was excellently adapted for the field of battle, as it
is soonest made splendid, and is longest in growing soiled. He
permitted also those above the age of puberty to let their hair grow,
as he thought that they thus appeared taller, more manly, and more
terrible in the eyes of the enemy.

When they were thus equipped, he divided them into six morae of cavalry
and heavy-armed infantry. Each of these morae of the citizens has one
polemarch, four centurions, eight captains of fifty, and sixteen
enomotarchs. The men of these morae are sometimes, according to the
command issued, formed in enomotiae, sometimes by threes, sometimes by
sixes. As to what most people imagine, that the arrangement of the
Lacedaemonians under arms is extremely complex, they conceive the exact
contrary to what is the fact; for in the Lacedaemonian order the
officers are placed in the front ranks, and each rank is in a
condition to perform everything which it is necessary for it to
perform. So easy is it to understand this arrangement that no one who
can distinguish one man from another would fail of learning it; for it
is assigned to some to lead, and enjoined on others to follow.
Shiftings of place, by which the companies are extended or deepened,
are ordered by the word of the enomotarch, as by a herald; and in
th