After an obstinate resistance and a fearful slaughter, the right wing of the Spartans was completely beaten, and driven back to their camp on the higher ground. [379] Plutarch, Symposiac. ii. 5, p. 639 F. It was upon this Spartan right wing, where the Theban left was irresistibly strong, that all the stress of the battle fell,—as Epaminondas had intended that it should. In no other part of the line does there appear to have been any serious fighting; partly through his deliberate scheme of not pushing forward either his centre or his right,—partly through the preliminary victory of the Theban cavalry, which probably checked a part of the forward march of the enemy’s line,—and partly also through the lukewarm adherence, or even suppressed hostility, of the allies marshalled under the command of Kleombrotus.[380] The Phokians and Herakleots,—zealous in the cause from hatred of Thebes,—had quitted the line to strike a blow at the retiring baggage and attendants; while the remaining allies, after mere nominal fighting and little or no loss, retired to the camp as soon as they saw the Spartan right defeated and driven back to it. Moreover, even some Lacedæmonians on the left wing, probably astounded by the lukewarmness of those around them, and by the unexpected calamity on their own right, fell back in the same manner. The whole Lacedæmonian force, with the dying king, was thus again assembled and formed behind the entrenchment on the higher ground, where the victorious Thebans did not attempt to molest them.[381] [380] Pausanias (ix, 13, 4; compare viii, 6, 1) lays great stress upon this indifference or even treachery of the allies. Xenophon says quite enough to authenticate the reality of the fact (Hellen. vi, 4, 15-24); see also Cicero De Offic. ii, 7, 26. Polyænus has more than one anecdote respecting the dexterity of Agesilaus in dealing with faint-hearted conduct or desertion on the part of the allies of Sparta (Polyæn. ii, 1, 18-20). [381] Xen. Hellen. vi, 4, 13, 14.