Note 563 — Chapter LXXIV · FROM THE BATTLE OF KNIDUS TO THE REBUILDING OF THE LONG WALLS OF ATHENS.

The traveller Pausanias justifies the prudence of his regal namesake in avoiding a battle, by saying that the Athenians were in his rear, and the Thebans in his front; and that he was afraid of being assailed on both sides at once, like Leonidas at Thermopylæ and like the troops enclosed in Sphakteria (Paus. iii, 5, 5).

But the matter of fact, on which this justification rests, is contradicted by Xenophon, who says that the Athenians had actually joined the Thebans, and were in the same ranks—ἐλθόντες ξυμπαρετάξαντο (Hellen. iii, 5, 22).