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Agesilaus led forth his army and reached Boeotia accompanied by all the soldiers, amounting to more than eighteen thousand, in which were the five divisions of Lacedaemonians. Each division contained five hundred men. The company known as Sciritae1 amongst the Spartans is not drawn up with the rest, but has its own station with the king and it goes to the support of the sections that from time to time are in distress; and since it is composed of picked men, it is an important factor in turning the scale in pitched battles, and generally determines the victory. Agesilaus also had fifteen hundred cavalry.

1 A people who lived on the mountainous northern frontier of Laconia. This special corps, considered apparently the cream of the army, formed the vanguard of an advance and the rearguard of a retreat. Thought by some to be lightarmed, though this is doubted by Kromayer-Veith on the strength of this and other passages (p. 39, Heerwesen und Kriegsführung der Griechen und Römer, Munich, 1928). (See Thuc. 5.67.1).

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