A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

CHAPTER XXII
THE SUPREMACY OF SPARTA
I. The Fall of the Thirty
Presently Thrasybulus with about seventy followers
sallied out from Thebes, and made himself master of the
The patriots
at Phvle
fortress of Phyle. The weather was brilliant, and the Xenophon,
Thirty marched out of the city to repel the invader; with
them were the Three Thousand and the Knights.
When
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they reached the place, some of the young men, in the
Greece, 251-
r 11 ,• r 1 1 , , , r 6; Ancient
,
looihardmess of youth, made a dash at the fortress, but World, 253.
without effect; all they got was wounds and so retired.
The intention of the Thirty now was to blockade the These patriots
had
, rr II 1
place; by shuttmg off all the avenues of supply they been exiled
thought to force the garrison to capitulate. But this Thirty, and
project was interrupted by a steady downfall of snow that ^y^ ^°^,
'^
•>
returning by
.
night and the following day. Baffled by this all-pervading force.
enemy, they beat a retreat to the city but not without the
sacrifice of many of their camp followers, who fell a prey
to the men in Phyle. The next anxiety of the government
in Athens was to secure the farms and country houses
against the plunderings and forays to
which they would
be exposed, if there were no armed force to protect them.
With this object a protecting force was despatched to the
"boundary estates" about two miles this side of Phyle,
The Thirty
This corps consisted of the Lacedemonian guards, or
... had received
nearly all of them, and two divisions of horse. They en- from Sparta
camped in a wild and broken district, and the round of guardlfor
protection.
their duties commenced.
247