Note 663 — Chapter LXXV · FROM THE REBUILDING OF THE LONG WALLS OF ATHENS TO THE PEACE OF ANTALKIDAS.

Xen. Hellen. iv, 5, 14. Τούτους μὲν ἐκέλευον τοὺς ὑπασπιστὰς ἀραμένους ἀποφέρειν ἐς Λέχαιον· οὗτοι καὶ μόνοι τῆς μόρας τῇ ἀληθείᾳ ἐσώθησαν.

We have here a remarkable expression of Xenophon,—“These were the only men in the mora who were really and truly saved.” He means, I presume, that they were the only men who were saved without the smallest loss of honor; being carried off wounded from the field of battle, and not having fled or deserted their posts. The others who survived, preserved themselves by flight; and we know that the treatment of those Lacedæmonians who ran away from the field (οἱ τρέσαντες), on their return to Sparta, was insupportably humiliating. See Xenoph. Rep. Laced. ix, 4; Plutarch, Agesil. c. 30. We may gather from these words of Xenophon, that a distinction was really made at Sparta between the treatment of these wounded men here carried off, and that of the other survivors of the beaten mora.

The ὑπασπισταὶ, or shield-bearers, were, probably, a certain number of attendants, who habitually carried the shields of the officers (compare Xen. Hellen. iv, 8, 39; Anab. iv, 2, 20), persons of importance, and rich hoplites. It seems hardly to be presumed that every hoplite had an ὑπασπιστὴς, in spite of what we read about the attendant Helots at the battle of Platæa (Herod. ix, 10-29) and in other places.