7. The attention of Sparta was almost exclusively directed to the heavy infantry; and it can scarcely be denied that this was carried by them to the highest pitch of perfection. The arms(1181) consisted of a long spear,(1182) a short sword only used in the closest single combat,(1183) a brazen shield,(1184) which covered the body from the shoulders to the knees,(1185) and was in other respects also more similar to the shield of the heroic age than that of the other Greeks. For while the Greeks in general had adopted the Carian handle (ὀχάνη) in order to direct the motion of the shield, of which the size had been considerably reduced, the Spartan buckler was probably suspended upon a thong (τελαμὼν) laid round the neck, and was only managed by a ring (πόρπαξ) fastened to the concave side, which in time of peace could be taken out.(1186) Cleomenes the Third first introduced the handles of shields in Lacedæmon, and in general a less heavy armour.(1187) 8. The principles of the Lacedæmonian tactics may be deduced from what has been already said on the subject of the enomoty, and of its movements; the deployment of the enomoty (the ἐξελιγμὸς) was the chief means of opposing the best soldiers to the enemy,(1188) and it was from this movement in particular that victory was expected. A particular kind of this manœuvre was called the Laconian; it began from the enomotarchs, who faced about to the right, and passed in an oblique direction between their own and the next file; the whole file, following its leader, placed itself in front of the uragus, who merely faced to the right about. So that the whole phalanx, by this means, turning their faces towards the enemy who appeared in the rear, advanced at the same time in that direction by the depth of the order of battle. The Macedonian mode was different from this; for in that the movement began from the uragus, and therefore the phalanx lost, instead of gained, the same space of ground as it covered; and the Cretan (called also _Choreus_) differed from both, as the enomotarch and uragus both moved, until they changed places, and consequently, according to this method, the phalanx remained on the same ground.(1189) In a charge it was the duty of the general to take care that the army constantly inclined somewhat further to the right than the exact line of its intended direction, since each man naturally endeavoured to bring his unprotected side under the shield of his neighbour, and the last man on the right wing to turn away that side from the danger, and therefore to outflank the left of the enemy:(1190) this was also the cause of the weakness of the right wing, which they endeavoured to remedy by putting in it the best troops, and by protecting it with cavalry. Before Epaminondas discovered the art of concentrating the battle in the spot in which he was strongest, and of keeping the rest of the enemy’s troops unengaged, the general had to attend to two points.