humbled, and walked with cast-down eyes. Yet more admirable was the conduct of the women, for one might see mothers receiving their sons who had survived the battle with silence and sorrow, while those whose children had fallen proceeded to the temples to return thanks to the gods, and walked about the city with a proud and cheerful demeanour. XXX. Yet, when their allies deserted them, and when the victorious Epameinondas, excited by his success, was expected to invade Peloponnesus, many Spartans remembered the oracle about the lameness of Agesilaus, and were greatly disheartened and cast down, fearing that they had incurred the anger of Heaven, and that the misfortunes of the city were due to their own conduct in having excluded the sound man from the throne, and chosen the lame one; the very thing which the oracle had bidden them beware of doing. Nevertheless, Agesilaus was so powerful in the state, and so renowned for wisdom and courage, that they gladly made use of him as their leader in the war, and also employed him to settle a certain constitutional difficulty which arose about the political rights of the survivors of the battle. They were unwilling to disfranchise all these men, who were so numerous and powerful, because they feared that if so they would raise a revolution in the city. For the usual rule at Sparta about those who survive a defeat is, that they are incapable of holding any office in the state; nor will any one give them his daughter in marriage; but all who meet them strike them, and treat them with contempt. They hang about the city in a squalid and degraded condition, wearing a cloak patched with pieces of a different colour, and they shave one half of their beards, and let the other half grow. Now, at the present crisis it was thought that to reduce so many citizens to this condition, especially when the state sorely required soldiers, would be an absurd proceeding; and consequently, Agesilaus was appointed lawgiver, to decide upon what was to be done. He neither altered the laws, nor proposed any new ones, but laid down his office of lawgiver at once, with the remark, that the laws must be allowed to sleep for that one day, and afterwards resume their force. By this means he both preserved the laws, retained the services of the citizens for the state, and saved them from infamy. With the intention of cheering up the young men, and enabling them to shake off their excessive despondency, he led an army into Arcadia. He was careful to avoid a battle, but captured a small fort belonging to the people of Mantinea, and overran their territory; thus greatly raising the spirits of the Spartans, who began to pluck up courage, and regard their city as not altogether ruined.