Note 400 — Chapter LXXVIII · BATTLE OF LEUKTRA AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

Pausanias states that immediately after the battle, Epaminondas gave permission to the allies of Sparta to depart and go home, by which permission they profited, so that the Spartans now stood alone in the camp (Paus. ix, 14, 1). This however is inconsistent with the account of Xenophon (vi, 4, 26), and I think improbable.

Sievers (Geschichte, etc. p. 247) thinks that Jason preserved the Spartans by outwitting and deluding Epaminondas. But it appears to me that the storming of the Spartan camp was an arduous enterprise, wherein more Thebans than Spartans would have been slain: moreover, the Spartans were masters of the port of Kreusis, so that there was little chance of starving out the camp before reinforcements arrived. The capitulation granted by Epaminondas seems to have been really the wisest proceeding.