narrow gorges of the hills, some one ran to Pelopidas, and cried out,
"We have fallen into the midst of the enemy!" "Why so," asked he,
"more than they into the midst of us?" He at once ordered his cavalry
to the front to charge the enemy first, and closed up his infantry,
three hundred in number, into a compact body, trusting that wherever
he attacked the enemy he should break through, although they
outnumbered him. They consisted of two moras of Lacedæmonians: now
Ephorus says that a mora consists of 500 men, but Kallisthenes says
700, and some other authorities, and amongst them Polybius, put it at
900.

Gorgoleon and Theopompus, the polemarchs in command of the Spartans,
moved confidently to the attack of the Thebans; and the onset was
directed on both sides, with great fury, specially at the persons of
the leaders. The two polemarchs dashed against Pelopidas, and both
fell; then the slaughter of their immediate followers produced a panic
in the whole force, and it gave way to the Thebans, opening a lane
through the centre as if for them to pass through. But when Pelopidas
led his men into the passage thus offered, and assailed those who
stood their ground, passing through it with great slaughter, then all
fled in hopeless rout.

The pursuit was not pressed far, for the Thebans feared the vicinity
of Orchomenus and of the Spartan reinforcement there; but as far as
winning the victory, and forcing their way through the beaten enemy,
they were completely successful; so after setting up a trophy and
spoiling the dead they returned home in high spirits. For in all the
wars which had previously taken place, both with Greeks and
barbarians, it never before had happened that Lacedæmonians should be
conquered by an inferior force, nor yet even when the numbers on each