Book 7
5.14
Epaminondas, on the other hand, reflecting362 B.C. that the Arcadians would be coming to Lacedaemon to bring aid, had no desire to fight against them and against all the Lacedaemonians after they had come together,cp. 10. especially since they had met with success and his men with disaster; so he marched back as rapidly as he could to Tegea, and allowed his hoplites to rest there, but sent his horsemen on to Mantinea, begging them to endure this additional effort and explaining to them that probably all the cattle of the Mantineans were outside the city and likewise all the people, particularly as it was harvest time.
5.15
They then set forth; but the Athenian horsemen, setting out from Eleusis, had taken dinner at the Isthmus and, after having passed through Cleonae also, chanced to be approaching Mantinea or to be already quartered within the wall in the houses. And when the enemy were seen riding toward the city, the Mantineans begged the Athenian horsemen to help them, if in any way they could; for outside the wall were all their cattle and the labourers, and likewise many children and older men of the free citizens. When the Athenians heard this they sallied forth to the rescue, although they were still without breakfast, they and their horses as well.
5.16
Here, again, who would not admire the valour of these men also? For although they saw that the enemy were far more numerous, and although a misfortune had befallen the horsemen at Corinth, they took no account of this, nor of the fact that they were about to fight with the Thebans and the Thessalians, who were thought to be the best of horsemen, but rather, being ashamed to be at hand and yet render no service to their allies, just as soon as they saw the362 B.C. enemy they crashed upon them, eagerly desiring to win back their ancestral repute.
