It was with a view to these two great foundations, as well as to expel Agesilaus, that Epaminondas now marched the Theban army into Arcadia; the command being voluntarily intrusted to him by Pelopidas and the other Bœotarchs present. He arrived shortly after the retirement of Agesilaus, while the Arcadians and Eleians were ravaging the lands of the recusant town of Heræa. As they speedily came back to greet his arrival, the aggregate confederate body,—Argeians, Arcadians, and Eleians, united with the Thebans and their accompanying allies,—is said to have amounted to forty thousand, or according to some, even to seventy thousand men.[460] Not merely had Epaminondas brought with him a choice body of auxiliaries,—Phokians, Lokrians, Eubœans, Akarnanians, Herakleots, Malians, and Thessalian cavalry and peltasts,—but the Bœotian bands themselves were so brilliant and imposing, as to excite universal admiration. The victory of Leuktra had awakened among them an enthusiastic military ardor, turned to account by the genius of Epaminondas, and made to produce a finished discipline which even the unwilling Xenophon cannot refuse to acknowledge.[461] Conscious of the might of their assembled force, within a day’s march of Laconia, the Arcadians, Argeians, and Eleians pressed Epaminondas to invade that country, now that no allies could approach the frontier to its aid. At first he was unwilling to comply. He had not come prepared for the enterprise; being well aware, from his own journey to Sparta (when the peace-congress was held there prior to the battle of Leuktra), of the impracticable nature of the intervening country, so easy to be defended, especially during the winter-season, by troops like the Lacedæmonians, whom he believed to be in occupation of all the passes. Nor was his reluctance overcome until the instances of his allies were backed by assurances from the Arcadians on the frontier, that the passes were not all guarded; as well as by invitations from some of the discontented Periœki, in Laconia. These Periœki engaged to revolt openly, if he would only show himself in the country. They told him that there was a general slackness throughout Laconia in obeying the military requisitions from Sparta; and tendered their lives as atonement if they should be found to speak falsely. By such encouragements, as well as by the general impatience of all around him to revenge upon Sparta her long career of pride and abused ascendency, Epaminondas was at length induced to give the order of invasion.[462] [460] Plutarch, Agesil. c. 31; and compare Agesil. and Pomp. c. 4; Diodor. xv, 62. Compare Xenophon, Agesilaus, 2, 24. [461] Xen. Hellen. vi, 5, 23. Οἱ δὲ Ἀρκάδες καὶ Ἀργεῖοι καὶ Ἠλεῖοι ἔπειθον αὐτοὺς ἡγεῖσθαι ὡς τάχιστα εἰς τὴν Λακωνικήν, ἐπιδείκνυντες μὲν τὸ ἑαυτῶν πλῆθος, ὑπερεπαινοῦντες δὲ τὸ τῶν Θηβαίων στράτευμα. Καὶ γὰρ οἱ μὲν Βοιωτοὶ ἐγυμνάζοντο πάντες περὶ τὰ ὅπλα, ἀγαλλόμενοι τῇ ἐν Λεύκτροις νίκῃ, etc.