In the mean time, Epaminondas, with his body of foot, had charged the Lacedæmonian phalanx. The troops fought on both sides with incredible ardour; both the Thebans and Lacedæmonians being resolved to perish rather than yield the glory of arms to their rivals. They began by fighting with the spear; and those first arms being soon broken in the fury of the combat, they charged each other sword in hand. The resistance was equally obstinate, and the slaughter very great on both sides. The furious slaughter on both sides having continued a great while without the victory's inclining to either, Epaminondas, to force it to declare for him, thought it his duty to make an extraordinary effort in person, without regard to the danger of his own life. He formed, therefore, a troop of the bravest and most determined about him, and putting himself at the head of them, he made a vigorous charge upon the enemy, where the battle was most warm, and wounded the general of the Lacedæmonians with the first javelin he threw. His troop, by his example, having wounded or killed all that stood in their way, broke and penetrated the phalanx. The gross of the Theban troops, animated by their general's example and success, drove back the enemy upon his right and left, and made a great slaughter of them. But some troops of the Spartans, perceiving that Epaminondas abandoned himself too much to his ardour, suddenly rallied, and returning to the fight, charged him with a shower of javelins. Whilst he kept off part of those darts, shunned some of them, fenced off others, and was fighting with the most heroic valour, to assure the victory to his army, a Spartan, named Callicrates, gave him a mortal wound with a javelin in the breast across his cuirass. The wood of the javelin being broken off, and the iron head continuing in the wound, the torment was insupportable, and he fell immediately. The battle began around him with new fury; the one side using their utmost endeavours to take him alive, and the other to save him. The Thebans gained their point at last, and carried him off, after having put the enemy to flight.