It was perhaps on this occasion, while the allies were advancing, that a band of about two hundred men, who had for the most part been long suspected by the government, occupied the Issorium, one of the heights on the skirt of the town towards the river. As they had received no orders, it was evident that they were acting with treasonable designs; and some proposed that they should be forthwith dislodged by force. Agesilaus, however, thought it more prudent, as the extent of the conspiracy was not known, to try a milder course; and going up to the place with a single attendant, affected to believe that they had mistaken his orders, and directed them to station themselves in different quarters. They obeyed, thinking that they had escaped detection; but fifteen of them were arrested by the orders of Agesilaus, and put to death without form of trial, in the night. The suppression of this attempt may have led to the discovery of another more dangerous conspiracy, in which a number of Spartans were implicated. They were arrested in a house where they held clandestine meetings. The clearer their guilt, the more dangerous it probably appeared to bring them to trial; yet there was no power in the state which could legally put a Spartan to death without one. Even the authority of the ephors had never yet been carried so far. They determined however, after a consultation with Agesilaus, to dispense with legal forms, and the prisoners were delivered to a secret execution. The desertions which took place among the helots and the Laconian troops were carefully concealed from public knowledge; but this may not indicate their frequency, so much as the vigilance of Agesilaus.