So, when all the Greeks had relaxed into the quiet they had so greatly longed for and were growing sluggish in leisure at home, the Lacedaemonians — restless rather than vigorous, and unbearable through fury rather than through valour — having laid their wars aside, attempted thefts of war.
1 Cunctis igitur Graecis optatissima quiete resolutis domesticoque otio torpentibus Lacedaemonii, inquieti magis quam strenui et furore potius quam uirtute intolerabiles, post bella deposita temptant furta bellorum.
For, having watched for the absence of the Arcadians, they broke into a fortress of theirs in a sudden raid. The Arcadians, roused by the injury and joined by the help of the Thebans, sought back by war what they had lost by theft.
2 nam speculati absentiam Arcadum castellum eorum repentina inruptione perfringunt. Arcades uero exciti iniuria, iuncto sibi Thebanorum auxilio amissa furto bello repetunt.
In that battle Archidamus, the general of the Lacedaemonians, was wounded, and when he saw his men being slaughtered as though already defeated, he asked through a herald for the bodies of the slain for burial: among the Greeks this is customarily held to be a sign that the victory has been surrendered.
3 in eo proelio Archidamus dux Lacedaemoniorum uulneratus cum iam caedi suos ut uictos uideret, occisorum corpora per praeconem ad sepulturam poposcit: quod signum uictoriae traditae inter Graecos haberi solet.
The Thebans, content with this admission, gave the signal to spare them and put an end to the battle.
4 Thebani autem hac confessione contenti, dato parcendi signo, finem dedere certamini.
Then, after a few days of truce had intervened and the Lacedaemonians had turned to other wars, the Thebans under their general Epaminondas grew confident of invading Lacedaemon, supposing it to be unguarded and abandoned. They came silently to Lacedaemon in the dead of night; but they did not find it as unwary or as undefended as they had supposed:
5 paucis deinde interuenientibus indutiarum diebus, Lacedaemoniis ad alia bella conuersis, Thebani cum Epaminonda duce de inuadenda Lacedaemona quasi secura et destituta cepere fiduciam. taciti intempesta nocte Lacedaemonam ueniunt; sed non ita incautam uel indefensam, sicut rebantur, offendunt:
for the old men, armed, together with the rest of the crowd too old or too young for war, having learned in advance of the enemy’s approach, threw themselves into the very narrows of the gates, and scarcely a hundred men worn out with age burst out against fifteen thousand soldiers. While these were withstanding so great a mass of war, the young men arrived and resolved without hesitation to engage the Thebans in open battle.
6 armati enim senes cum reliqua turba inbellis aetatis, praecognito aduentu hostium, in ipsis se portarum angustiis obiecerunt et aduersus quindecim milia militum uix centum confecti aeuo homines proruperunt. his itaque tantam belli molem sustinentibus iuuentus superueniens congredi aduersus Thebanos aperto certamine incunctanter decreuit.
Battle was joined, and as the Lacedaemonians were being defeated, suddenly Epaminondas, the general of the Thebans, fighting too incautiously, was wounded. Thereupon, while fear was born in the one side from grief and stupefaction in the other from joy, both sides withdrew as if by silent agreement.
7 commisso proelio cum Lacedaemonii uincerentur, repente Epaminondas dux Thebanorum incautius dimicans uulneratur. quare dum his ex dolore metus, illis ex gaudio stupor nascitur, veluti ex consensu tacito utrimque discessum est.
Epaminondas, gravely wounded, when he had learned of his men’s victory and had kissed his shield, removed the hand with which he had closed the wound, and so opened a way out for his blood and a way in for death: and his death was followed by such a ruin of the Thebans that they seemed not to have lost their general but to have perished with him then themselves.
8 Epaminondas autem grauiter saucius cum de uictoria suorum conperisset scutumque exosculatus esset, remota manu, qua uulnus occluserat, egressum sanguinis ac mortis patefecit introitum: cuius mortem sic Thebanorum perditio subsecuta est, ut non perdidisse ducem sed ipsi cum eo tunc perisse uiderentur.
I have woven an inextricable hurdle of tangled history, and, following hard on the heels of events in my words, I have entangled the uncertain cycles of wars waged this way and that in frenzied fury; for, as I see, I have written the more disorderly the more closely I have kept to the order.
9 Contexui indigestae historiae inextricabilem cratem atque incertos bellorum orbes huc et illuc lymphatico furore gestorum uerbis e uestigio secutus inplicui, quoniam tanto, ut uideo, inordinatius scripsi, quanto magis ordinem custodiui.
The shameless greed of the Lacedaemonians for domination — among how many peoples, in what cities, in which provinces it stirred up what manner of hatreds, how many causes of conflict — who could set out by number, order or reckoning? For they themselves, too, are reported to have been afflicted no more by the wars than by the confusion of the wars:
10 improba dominandi Lacedaemoniorum cupiditas quantis populis, qualibus urbibus, quibus prouinciis cuiusmodi odiorum motus, quantas causas certaminum suscitarit, quis uel numero uel ordine uel ratione disponat? cum ipsi quoque non plus adflicti bellis quam bellorum confusione referantur:
since this continuous war was drawn out through several generations, as Athenians, Lacedaemonians, Arcadians, Boeotians, Thebans, and finally Greece, Asia, Persia, and Egypt with Libya and the greatest islands waged conflicts by sea and land at once in indiscriminate forays. I could not relate the thousands of men slain, even if I were to count the wars.
11 siquidem tracto per aliquot aetates hoc continuo bello Athenienses Lacedaemonii Arcades Boeotii Thebani, postremo Graecia Asia Persis atque Aegyptos cum Libya insulisque maximis nauales simul pedestresque conflictus indiscretis egere discursibus. referre caesa hominum milia non possem, etiam si bella numerarem.
But now let him decry these times and praise those, whoever does not know that all these peoples of those cities and provinces now grow old in nothing but games and theatres, just as then they wasted away above all in camps and battles.
12 At nunc increpet haec tempora atque illa conlaudet quicumque nescit hosce omnes istarum urbium prouinciarumque populos ita nunc in solis ludis ac theatris consenescere, sicuti tunc in castris maxime proeliisque tabuisse.
That most flourishing city of the Lacedaemonians, which then aspired to the empire of the whole East, could scarcely muster a hundred old men; so beset was it by unceasing evils that it wretchedly spent its generations before their time:
13 florentissima illa et totius tunc imperium orientis adfectans Lacedaemoniorum ciuitas uix centum habere potuit senes; ita incessabilibus circumuenta malis inmaturas misere expendebat aetates:
and men complain now, whose cities, filled with boys and old men, are enriched by the untroubled travels of their young men abroad and gain by peaceful pursuits the means of pleasure at home — unless perhaps, since all things present are wont to seem worthless to human fickleness, life itself is a weariness to those who itch for novelties in deed and in hearing.
14 et queruntur nunc homines, quorum refertae pueris et senibus ciuitates secura iuuenum peregrinatione ditantur pacificisque exercitiis stipendia domesticae uoluptatis adquirunt nisi forte - ut adsolent humanae mutabilitati omnia sordere praesentia - nouitates rerum actu audituque prurientibus ipsa etiam uita fastidio est.