[10]
Then the Argives, filled with overweening confidence on account of their numbers, advanced at once; and they defeated the Sicyonians, and breaking through the stockade pursued them to the sea and there killed many of them. But Pasimachus, the Lacedaemonian1 commander of horse, at the head of a few horsemen, when he saw the Sicyonians hard pressed, tied his horses to trees, took from the Sicyonians their shields, and advanced with a volunteer force against the Argives. The Argives, however, seeing the Sigmas upon the shields, did not fear these opponents at all, thinking that they were Sicyonians. Then, as the story goes, Pasimachus said: “By the twin gods,2 Argives, these Sigmas will deceive you,” and came to close quarters with them; and fighting thus with a few against many he was slain, and likewise others of his party
Xenophon. Xenophon in Seven Volumes, 1 and 2. Carleton L. Brownson. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA; William Heinemann, Ltd., London. vol. 1:1918; vol. 2: 1921.
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