Leuktra there are the tombs of the daughters of Skedasus, whom they
call Leuktridæ because of the place of their burial; for there it was
that they were buried after they had been violated by some Spartan
strangers. When this base and impious deed was done, their father, as
he could get no satisfaction from the Lacedæmonians, invoked curses
upon the Spartan race, and slew himself at the tombs of his daughters.
Oracles and legends always had warned the Spartans to beware of the
vengeance of Leuktra, though most of them did not understand it, and
were not clear as to the place, since a small sea-side town in Laconia
is also called Leuktron, and there is a place of the same name near
Megalopolis in Arcadia, and, also, this crime was committed a long
time before the battle.

XXI. So now Pelopidas, when asleep in the camp, seemed to see the
maidens weeping over their tombs and invoking curses on the Spartans,
and Skedasus, who bade him sacrifice a red virgin to the maidens, if
he wished to conquer his enemies. And as this command seemed to him
shocking and impious, he started up and consulted the prophets and the
generals. Some of them forbade him to neglect or disobey the warning,
quoting the famous old instances of Menækeus the son of Kreon and
Makaria the daughter of Herakles, and, in later times, Pherekydes the
philosopher, who was killed by the Lacedæmonians, and whose skin,
according to some oracle, is still kept by their kings, and Leonidas,
who following the oracle did in some sort offer himself as a victim on
behalf of Greece; and futhermore they spoke of those persons whom
Themistokles sacrificed to Dionysus before the sea-fight at Salamis.
All these are verified by the success which followed them. And again,
Agesilaus when starting from the same place that Agamemnon did to
fight the same enemies, was asked by the god, during a vision at
Aulis, to give him his daughter as a sacrifice; but he did not give