At this point no one will dispute the valour of Agesilaus, but he certainly did not choose the safest course. It was open to him to make way for the enemy to pass, which done, he might have hung upon his heels and mastered his rear. This, however, he refused to do, preferring to crash full front against the Thebans. Thereupon, with close interlock of shield wedged in with shield, they shoved, they fought, they dealt death, (19) they breathed out life, till at last a portion of the Thebans broke their way through towards Helicon, but paid for that departure by the loss of many lives. And now the victory of Agesilaus was fairly won, and he himself, wounded, had been carried back to the main line, when a party of horse came galloping up to tell him that something like eighty of the enemy, under arms, were sheltering under the temple, and they asked what they ought to do. Agesilaus, though he was covered with wounds, did not, for all that, forget his duty to God. He gave orders to let them retire unscathed, and would not suffer any injury to be done to them. And now, seeing it was already late, they took their suppers and retired to rest. (19) Or, "they slew, they were slain." In illustration of this famous passage, twice again worked up in "Ages." ii. 12, and "Cyrop." VII. i. 38, commented on by Longinus, {peri upsous}, 19, and copied by Dio Cassius, 47, 45, I venture to quote a passage from Mr. Rudyard Kipling, "With the Main Guard," p. 57, Mulvaney loquitur: "The Tyrone was pushin' an' pushin' in, an' our men was sweerin' at thim, an' Crook was workin' away in front av us all, his sword-arm swingin' like a pump-handle an' his revolver spittin' like a cat. But the strange thing av ut was the quiet that lay upon. 'Twas like a fight in a dhrame--excipt for thim that wus dead."