Dr. Roel Konijnendijk

And this is like all out, all Peloponnesian forces, like everybody who's still loyal to Sparta has to go.

So they march in force, later sources say 11,000 hoplites or something like that.

Very, very large army.

march into Boeotia by surprise route, going along the coast and then sort of marching inland, sort of from the Delphi direction, so from the southwest.

And the Boeotians or the Thebans and their remaining allies confront them there.

They are heavily outnumbered.

There are only maybe 7,000 of them.

We're not really sure about the numbers, maybe even fewer.

And the Thebans sort of get together in council.

They have a council of generals, which is very common in the Greek world, especially in democracy.

So the Athenians always sent out several generals.

They have a council of generals.

They debate together saying, should we fight or is this a lost cause, right?

Like we are heavily outnumbered.

They're angry.

They have cause.

We are just us, like our allies are melting away because all of these Boeotian cities that are under the Theban thumb, they obviously see this opportunity.

So they're literally sort of, you know,

bleeding out of the army.

The Boeotians have this debate and say like, are we sure we want to do this?