Book 6
4.5
Cleombrotus, if you let the Thebans escape without a battle, you will be in danger of suffering the uttermost penalty at the hands of your state. For they will remember against you not only the time when you reached Cynoscephalae and laid waste no part of the country of the Thebans, but also the time when, on your later expedition, you were beaten back from effecting your entrace, although Agesilaus always made his entrance by way of Cithaeron. Therefore if you really have a care for yourself or a desire to see your fatherland again, you must lead against these men. Such were the words of his friends; but his opponents said: Now is the time when the man will make it clear whether he is in truth partial to the Thebans, as rumour has it.
4.6
Cleombrotus, then, as he heard these things was spurred on to join battle. The leaders of the Thebans, on the other hand, calculated that if they did not fight, the cities round about would revolt from them and they would themselves be besieged; further, that if the people of Thebes were thus cut off from provisions, the city itself would be in danger of turning against them. And since many of them had been in exile before, they estimated that it was better to die fighting than to be exiled again.
