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Updated: June 8, 2025
Pelopidas was soon after sent on a message to Alexander, the savage tyrant of Thessaly, who seized him and put him in chains in a dismal dungeon. The Theban army marched to deliver him, Epaminondas among them as a common soldier; but the two Bœotarchs in command managed so ill that they were beset by the Thessalian horsemen and forced to turn back.
And he gained these victories by outflanking, his attack being the form of a wedge, learned by the example of Epaminondas, a device which led to new tactics, and proclaimed Frederic a master of the art of war. But in these battles he simply showed himself to be a great general.
Nevertheless, this modern Epaminondas made use of the rattan in his choleric moments, and advised its use! At that time the conventos, fearful that he would render a decision favorable to the petition of the students, increased their gifts, so that on the afternoon when we see him he was more perplexed than ever, his reputation for energy was being compromised.
Yet the king always said that he had learned the manoeuvre from Epaminondas, and was only fighting the battle of Leuctra over again. But look there!"
Gently raising him so that he could see the battlefield, his friends pointed out the Spartan army in full flight, and the Thebans masters of the field. Epaminondas sank back with a sigh of relief, but soon roused himself again to ask whether his shield were safe. It was only when he had seen it that he would allow the doctors to examine his wound.
Cleombrotus was carried dying from the field, and Epaminondas had won the most difficult victory ever yet gained by a Greek. So far from being uplifted by it, all he said was how glad he was that his old father and mother would be pleased.
And it was with much more of despair than of hope that they took up at length a position on the hilly ground opposite the Spartan camp. The two armies were not long in coming to blows. The Spartans and their allies much exceeded the Thebans in numbers. But Epaminondas prepared to make the most of his small force by drawing it up in a new array, never before seen in Greece.
He fought desperately, and only fell at last under seven wounds just as another Theban, a little older, named Epaminondas, broke into his rescue, and fought over him until the Spartans made in and bore them off, but not till Epaminondas had likewise been badly wounded.
But Epaminondas would have nothing to do with a scheme that involved falsehood and treachery, however much he longed to see his country free. But on a dark, winter evening, Pelopidas and eleven more young exiles came one by one into Thebes, in the disguise of hunters, and met at the house of the friend who was going to give the feast.
His residence at Thebes gave him some tincture of Grecian philosophy and literature; but the most important lesson which he learned at that city was the art of war, with all the improved tactics introduced by Epaminondas. After defeating the Illyrians he established a standing army, in which discipline was preserved by the severest punishments.
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