and palisading, he crossed Cynoscephalae[23] and ravaged the district
right up to the city itself, giving the Thebans an opportunity of
engaging him in the plain or upon the hills, as they preferred. And
once more, in the ensuing year,[24] he marched against Thebes, and now
surmounting these palisades and entrenchments at Scolus,[25] he
ravaged the remainder of Boeotia.

[22] B.C. 378.

[23] See "Hell." V. iv. 34 foll.; for the site see Breitenbach, ad
loc.

[24] B.C. 377.

[25] See "Hell." V. iv. 47.

Hitherto fortune had smiled in common upon the king himself and upon
his city. And as for the disasters which presently befell, no one can
maintain that they were brought about under the leadership of
Agesilaus. But the day came when, after the disaster which had
occurred at Leuctra, the rival powers in conjunction with the
Mantineans fell to massacring his friends and adherents[26] in Tegea
(the confederacy between all the states of Boeotia, the Arcadians, and
the Eleians being already an accomplished fact). Thereupon, with the
forces of Lacedaemon alone,[27] he took the field, and thus belied the
current opinion that it would be a long while before the
Lacedaemonians ventured to leave their own territory again. Having
ravaged the country of those who had done his friends to death, he was
content, and returned home.