To assert that Agesilaus at this crisis displayed real valour is to
assert a thing indisputable, but for all that the course he adopted
was not the safest. It was open to him to let the enemy pass in their
effort to rejoin their friends, and that done to have hung upon their
heels and overmastered their rear ranks, but he did nothing of the
sort: what he did was, to crash front to front against the Thebans.
And so with shields interlocked they shoved and fought and fought and
shoved, dealing death and yielding life. There was no shouting, nor
yet was there even silence, but a strange and smothered utterance,
such as rage and battle vent.[9] At last a portion of the Thebans
forced their way through towards Helicon, but many were slain in that
departure.

[9] Or, "as the rage and fury of battle may give vent to." See
"Cyrop." VII. i. 38-40. A graphic touch omitted in "Hell." IV.
iii. 19.

Victory remained with Agesilaus. Wounded himself, they bore him back
to his own lines, when some of his troopers came galloping up to tell
him that eighty of the enemy had taken refuge with their arms[10]
under cover of the Temple,[11] and they asked what they ought to do.
He, albeit he had received wounds all over him, having been the mark
of divers weapons, did not even so forget his duty to God, and gave
orders to let them go whithersoever they chose, nor suffered them to
be ill-treated, but ordered his bodyguard of cavalry to escort them
out of reach of danger.

[10] I.e. "they had kept their arms."