Book 6
5.24
But while the Thebans listened to this request, they took into account, on the other hand, the fact that Laconia was said to be exceedingly difficult to enter, and that they believed garrisons were posted at the points of easiest access. For Ischolaus was at Oeum, in Sciritis, commanding a garrison composed of emancipated Helots and about four hundred of the youngest of the Tegean exiles; and there was another garrison also at Leuctrum, above Maleatis. The Thebans likewise weighed this consideration, that the force of the Lacedaemonians would gather quickly and that they would fight nowhere better370 B.C. than in their own country. Therefore, taking into account all these things, they were by no means eager to proceed into Lacedaemon.
5.25
But when people had come from Caryae telling of the dearth of men, promising that they would themselves act as guides, and bidding the Thebans slay them if they were found to be practising any deception, and when, further, some of the Perioeci appeared, asking the Thebans to come to their aid, engaging to revolt if only they would show themselves in the land, and saying also that even now the Perioeci when summoned by the Spartiatae were refusing to go and help them — as a result, then, of hearing all these reports, in which all agreed, the Thebans were won over, and pushed in with their own forces by way of Caryae, while the Arcadians went by way of Oeum, in Sciritis.
