The Spartans were drawn up together with their allies. Epaminondas advanced in an oblique line, sending forward the left wing and keeping back the right; but he then ordered the left wing gradually to withdraw to the left, and thus formed on that wing an immense mass. With this he now made a most vigorous attack upon the right wing of the enemy, where the Spartans themselves were stationed. An ordinary general would have done the contrary, directing his force against the part from which no such powerful resistance was to be expected. Pelopidas conducted the attack, and ordered the mass to advance with immense rapidity. We do not know whether the statement is true, that the Thebans advanced fifty men deep. We have only the testimony of Xenophon, but see no reason for denying it. The troops must have been excellently trained, for notwithstanding the dense mass, they advanced with an alacrity as if they had been light troops, just as at present troops advance in an attack with the bayonet, and not according to the fashion of phalangites, who otherwise advanced with deliberate solemnity. The Spartans made a skilful move: in order not to be outflanked, they turned to the right, intending to throw their cavalry upon the right wing of the Bœotians. But the Bœotians made the attack with such precision and quickness, that being beforehand, they routed the Lacedæmonians and Spartans. There Cleombrotus fell, and the Spartans were as decidedly beaten as they well could be. The army did not indeed disperse, but it was absolutely impossible to find any pretext for saying that they had been victorious at any one point, a matter in which the Greeks were otherwise extremely inventive. It requires the partiality of a Xenophon, to leave it undecided as to whether the Spartans were defeated.[13] After the battle, they appear to have remained together for a time, but there was no one among them able to undertake the command. Meantime, as a report had reached Sparta, that the Bœotians offered resistance, another Spartan army, under Archidamus, a son of Agesilaus, had marched across the Isthmus, and was now approaching, but found the Spartans already defeated. All he could do was to collect the remains of the defeated army and to return with them. They seem to have effected their retreat under the protection of a truce. The only auxiliaries of the Thebans in the battle of Leuctra, had been the Thessalian troops of prince Jason of Pheræ: one of the phenomena of an age, when the old order of things has disappeared, and new institutions have been formed.