The End of Sparta: A Novel by Victor Davis Hanson

would have done the judging free, just for the chance to kill a man without the charge of blood guilt.
    He stared down Ainias. “I wouldn’t try to slap me, sophist. Keep that shield still, or we’ll settle it here.” He stuck his finger almost into the chest of Ainias. “But listen, Arkadian, all you big fellows over there on the left will be only sixty men wide in your square—if even three thousand of you show up tomorrow and I can square my numbers. I figure Kleombrotos and his Spartans on the right wing will add up to twenty-five hundred, if not three thousand—at least as much as the men of Thebes. They may be eight shields to the rear. Or they may be twelve deep at most. Either way, with your sixty shields wide in the front row, you men on the left will be facing two or three hundred of them. I say you will be swallowed up in an eye blink one against four or maybe five. You Pythagoreans talk big about numbers and the good left hand. But these you don’t have a clue about.”
    This Philliadas had the crowd’s attention, even though most could not add or subtract, much less multiply his numbers. But they grasped well enough his point: The king’s wing of the far bigger army would be broader and quickly outflank the narrow deep column of the outnumbered Epaminondas on the left. It was madness to put your small head into a wide Spartan noose. Philliadas was chewing on the stem of a dried fig as he growled. “With that wider bunch, the king’s Spartans will go around you in no time. They’ll be at your rear and in the baggage in eye blinks. Even if my boys of Tanagra are out of the storm, soon they will be left naked in the center. We’ll be cut and spliced from our backsides. You Thebans will spear nothing but shadows way over on the naked left.”
    Voices of agreement followed. This torn-nose Philliadas had seen his share of crashing shields. “Maybe this will happen,” Ainias nodded, “ if our mass charges straight ahead or to our right, dear Philliadas, as you seem to think. But why in your Apollo’s name should we when fifty deep?” Ainias then threw out the rest of his wine on the dirt. “Instead Epaminondas and Pelopidas with the mass will veer left from the left. They lead their Thebans leftward to the king himself—at an angle, or loksên as you say. The rest of the line must follow them. The whole army will go out double-time at an angle leftward. Boiotians too can be crabs in their walk—although left-clawed crabs at that.”
    As he talked, Ainias clapped his hands to signal the collision of the armies, and then hit the dirt with his spear. Most in the crowd could not see his lines in the sand. But the hoplites felt that he seemed to know what he talked about to be able to draw and talk numbers at the same time—and not get a stab from Philliadas for his efforts. “No, our left mass will angle left for the king. It will kill him. Kill his flank guard, too. Our strong against their strong. We’ll hit them fifty shield deep from their open sides before they encircle us. The red-capes have not a clue of our ship’s ram that will smash them tomorrow with full oars.” Ainias finished, “If the Thebans do as we say, the Spartans will carry off their dead king in defeat packed in honey, back to the River Eurotas before Sparta itself—and the rest will flee.”
    Philliadas was left mumbling something about himself and his men filling in gaps when the left wing went on its slanted march. Then he headed back to the rear of the crowd, which hooted in approbation that one of their own had at least stood up to the Arkadian high talker.
    Epaminondas had quietly translated Ainias’s talk into even more crude lines and arrows in the sand. Then he paused to add a few twists of his own. To the hipparchs, about ten or so of the cavalry commanders of Thebes, he pointed. “You ride better than the Spartans. They scoff at horse battle. Why not move away from the flanks and ride out at our front? Why not