With these he rode back to Sparta, where he stopped in the market-place to tell his people that all was lost, and they had better make what terms they could.  They should decide whether his life or death were best for him, and while they deliberated, he turned towards his own empty house, but he could not bear to enter it.  A slave girl taken from Megalopolis ran out to bring him food and drink, but he would taste nothing, only being tired out he leant his arm sideways against a pillar and laid his head on it, and so he waited in silence till word was brought him that the citizens wished him to escape.