ing, and hesitated to step inside until he had first sent in a
man on whom he could rely to take a look at things within. The two
Corinthians introduced him, and made so simple and straightforward
a representation (8) that the visitor was convinced, and reported
everything as free of pitfalls as the two had asserted. Then the
polemarch entered, but owing to the wide space between the double
walls, as soon as they came to form in line within, the intruders were
impressed by the paucity of their numbers. They therefore erected a
stockade, and dug as good a trench as they could in front of them,
pending the arrival of reinforcements from the allies. In their rear,
moreover, lay the guard of the Boeotians in the harbour. Thus they
passed the whole day which followed the night of ingress without
striking a blow.

(8) Or, "showed him the place in so straightforward a manner."

On the next day, however, the Argive troops arrived in all haste,
hurrying to the rescue, and found the enemy duly drawn up. The
Lacedaemonians were on their own right, the men of Sicyon next, and
leaning against the eastern wall the Corinthian exiles, one hundred and
fifty strong. (9) Their opponents marshalled their lines face to face in
correspondence: Iphicrates with his mercenaries abutting on the eastern
wall; next to them the Argives, whilst the Corinthians of the city held
their left. In the pride inspired by numbers they began advancing at
once. They overpowered the Sicyonians, and tearing asunder the stockade,
pursued them to the sea and here slew numbers of them. At that instant
Pasimachus, the cavalry general, at the head of a handful of troopers,
seeing the Sicyonians sore presed, made fast the horses of his troops to
the trees, and relieving the Sicyonians of their heavy infantry shields,
advanced with his volunteers against the Argives. The latter, seeing the
Sigmas on the shields and taking them to be "Sicyonians," had not the
slightest fear. Whereupon, as the story goes, Pasimachus, exclaiming
in his broad Doric, "By the twin gods! these Sigmas will cheat you,
you Argives," came to close quarters, and in that battle of a handful
against a host, was slain himself with all his followers. In another
quarter of the field, however, the Corinthian exiles had got the better
of their opponents and worked their way up, so that they were now
touching the city circumvallation walls.

(9) See Grote, ix. p. 333 foll.

The Lacedaemonians, on th