If we believe Diodorus, the battle of Leuctra was the direct punishment for perjury: for Cleombrotus, it is said, had concluded a truce with the Thebans, but on the arrival of reinforcements from Peloponnesus, he broke it. One of the narratives must be untrue, either his or that of Xenophon; if the reinforcements under Archidamus arrived before the battle, Xenophon’s account must necessarily be given up. Cleombrotus may have had the peculiar misfortune, which happens to many a one who has been unsuccessful; all that is bad and disgraceful is attributed to him. What makes us still more inclined to disbelieve the account of Diodorus is, that if Archidamus had been present at the battle, it could not have been said that after the battle the Spartan army was without a commander. Diodorus probably too eagerly caught up an account which throws the blame upon the Spartans; it was invented either by Ephorus or by Callisthenes. The loss of the Spartans in the battle is very differently stated. According to one account, it amounted to 4000 men, which would include, besides the Lacedæmonians and Spartans, all the other allies; others mention only 1000 slain, which number would comprise the Lacedæmonians only; others again estimate their number at 1700; but this last number is erroneous, as has been correctly observed by Schneider in a note on Xenophon, and arose from a hasty glance at the numbers written in the characters of the Greek alphabet. We may take it for granted that not less than 1000 Lacedæmonians fell in the battle; but whether this number also comprised the Spartans or not, is a question which cannot be answered at all. But it is a fact, that the number of the Spartans was so extremely small, that the strength of the Spartan citizens as a body was completely paralysed by the loss of this battle. At one time there had been 9000 citizens, subsequently they are said to have amounted to 8000, but at this time there cannot have been 1000 real citizens, and at a still later time there were only 700. At Leuctra several hundreds of them fell. The ancient Spartan citizens were certainly not more numerous than the _nobili_ of Venice. They now had to feel the consequences of their wretched selfish policy, which had been so jealous in granting the franchise to the periœci, as to exclude a great many excellent men as unfit and unworthy, and had cut them off from every prospect of obtaining it.