 Six years after its founding a battle took place between the inhabitants of Heraclea and the assembled forces of the Aenianes, Dolopes, Malians, and Thessalians who were directly menaced by the colony.Sparta was unable at the time to send assistance to their colony; the Heracleots were defeated, and the town so reduced that in the following year, the Boeotians occupied it to prevent it falling into Athenian hands, and dismissed the Lacedaemonian governor, on the ground of misconduct.Thucydides tells us that the Spartans were "offended at the Boeotians for what they had done."