Immediately after the mysteries, he departed with his armament. It appears that Agis at Dekeleia, though he had not chosen to come out and attack Alkibiadês when posted to guard the Eleusinian procession, had nevertheless felt humiliated by the defiance offered to him. He shortly afterwards took advantage of the departure of this large force, to summon reinforcements from Peloponnesus and Bœotia, and attempt to surprise the walls of Athens on a dark night. If he expected any connivance within, the plot miscarried: alarm was given in time, and the eldest and youngest hoplites were found at their posts to defend the walls. The assailants—said to have amounted to twenty-eight thousand men, of whom half were hoplites, with twelve hundred cavalry, nine hundred of them Bœotians—were seen on the ensuing day close under the walls of the city, which were amply manned with the full remaining strength of Athens. In an obstinate cavalry battle which ensued, the Athenians gained the advantage even over the Bœotians. Agis encamped the next night in the garden of Akadêmus; again on the morrow he drew up his troops and offered battle to the Athenians, who are affirmed to have gone forth in order of battle, but to have kept under the protection of the missiles from the walls, so that Agis did not dare to attack them.[223] We may well doubt whether the Athenians went out at all, since they had been for years accustomed to regard themselves as inferior to the Peloponnesians in the field. Agis now withdrew, satisfied apparently with having offered battle, so as to efface the affront which he had received from the march of the Eleusinian communicants in defiance of his neighborhood. [223] Diodor. xiii, 72, 73.