Battle of Coronea ( 394 BC ) The Battle of Coronea in 394 BC was a battle in the Corinthian War , in which the Spartans and their allies under King Agesilaus II defeated a force of Thebans and Argives that was attempting to block their march back into the Peloponnese . Prelude . The Corinthian War began in 395 BC when Thebes , Argos , Corinth , and Athens , with Persian support and funding , united to oppose Spartan intervention in Locris and Phocis . At the start of the war , Agesilaus was in Ionia , campaigning against the Persians . When hostilities opened , he was recalled with his forces , and began an overland march through Thrace and central Greece back to the Peloponnese . Entering Boeotia , he was opposed by a force composed primarily of Thebans , allied Boeotians , and Argives . Agesilaus ' s forces were composed of a regiment and a half of Spartiate s , augmented by a force of freed helots , and a sizable force of allied troops from the Peloponnese and Ionia . Facing him on the plain , near the foot of Mount Helicon , was an army made up of Boeotians , Athenians , Argives , Corinthians , Euboeans , and Locrians . In all , the allies probably had 20 , 000 hoplite s . To oppose these , Agesilaus had 15 , 000 hoplites . The cavalry forces of the two sides were roughly equal , but Agesilaus had substantially more peltast s . Prior to the battle some of Agesilaus ' s army were disturbed by an omen witnessed some days before , when the sun had appeared crescent shaped . To reassure his men , Agesilaus first reminded them of the recent Spartan victory at Nemea . He then told them that the Spartan navarch Peisander had been killed in a victory over the Persian fleet . In fact , as Agesilaus knew , Peisander had been killed while suffering a crushing defeat at Cnidus . These reassurances , however , buoyed his army ' s morale going into the battle . The defeat at Nemea weighed heavily on the Argives and Corinthians . The Athenians were too familiar with the ups and downs of their previous long and disastrous war against Sparta , and the willingness of the Persians to switch support from one side to the other , to be overly encouraged . Only the Boeotians seemed confident of ultimate victory . The battle . As the two armies approached each other , Agesilaus himself commanded the Spartans on the extreme right flank of his army , the veterans of the " Ten Thousand " were next to the Spartans , the Asian Greeks were next to them , then came the Phocians , and the Orchomenians held the extreme left flank . The Thebans faced the Orchomenians and the Argives faced the Spartans . Both armies advanced in total silence . At about , the Thebans shouted their war cry and charged at the run . At about , the veterans of the " Ten Thousand " ( under the Spartiate Herippidas ) and the Asian Greeks charged the troops opposite them at the run . The veterans and the Asians quickly routed the troops opposite them . The Argives panicked before the Spartans under Agesilaus could even make contact and fled to Mount Helicon . The mercenaries near Agesilaus assumed the battle was over and offered him a garland to commemorate his victory . Just then news came that on the other flank , the Thebans had broken through the Orchomenians and were already at the baggage train , ransacking the loot taken from Asia . Agesilaus immediately wheeled his phalanx around and headed for the Thebans . At that moment , the Thebans noticed that their allies had fled to Mount Helicon . They formed up with the desperate design of breaking through Agesilaus ' s lines to rejoin the rest of their army . Agesilaus decided to oppose them by putting his phalanx directly in their path instead of taking them in the rear or flank , a decision that may have been influenced by his longstanding animosity towards Thebes . What followed was evidently one of the worst blood baths in the history of hoplite battles . As Xenophon described it , “ So shield pressed upon shield they struggled , killed and were killed in turn . ” In the end , a few Thebans broke through to Mount Helicon but , in the words of Xenophon , “ many others were killed on their way there . ” Aftermath . Agesilaus had himself been wounded in the battle and had to be carried back to the phalanx . There some cavalry rode up , informing him that about 80 of the enemy had taken refuge in a nearby temple . Agesilaus ordered that they be spared and allowed to go wherever they wished . The next morning , Agesilaus ordered the polemarch Gylis to put the army in battle formation and gave out awards for valour , received a delegation from the Thebans and allowed them to collect their dead . The army then retired to Phocis and invaded Locris where the polemarch Gylis was killed . According to Diodorus Siculus , more than 600 of the Boeotians and their allies fell , and the Spartans lost 350 men .