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This excited strong suspicion that what Phoebidas did was by Agesilaus's order, which was corroborated by after occurrences. For when the Thebans had expelled the garrison, and asserted their liberty, he, accusing them of the murder of Archias and Leontidas, who indeed were tyrants, though in name holding the office of Polemarchs, made war upon them.
At length the servant heard them and came and drew back the bolt of the door; then, as soon as the leaves of the door yielded they burst in in a body, and upsetting the servant made for the bedchamber. Leontidas, guessing from the noise and confusion what was going on, started up and seized his dagger, but he forgot to put out the light, and make the men fall upon each other in the darkness.
VI. When the Lacedæmonians removed Phœbidas from his command and fined him a hundred thousand drachmas, but nevertheless held the Kadmeia with a garrison, all the other Greeks wondered at their inconsistency, in punishing the doer but approving of the deed; but the Thebans, who had lost their old constitution and were now held in bondage by the party of Archias and Leontidas, had lost all hope of release from their tyrants, who they perceived were merely acting as a guard to the Spartan supremacy in Greece, and therefore could not be put a stop to, unless their enterprise by sea and land could also be checked.
However, Leontidas and his party, learning that the exiles were living at Athens, and were popular with the people there, and respected by the upper classes, began to plot against them, and by sending thither men who were unknown to the exiles, they killed Androkleides by stratagem, but failed with the others.
XXIV. This at once gave rise to a suspicion that Phœbidas was merely an agent, and that the whole plot originated with Agesilaus himself, and subsequent events confirmed this view; for as soon as the Thebans drove out the garrison and set free their city, Agesilaus made war upon them to avenge the murder of Archias and Leontidas, who had been nominally polemarchs, but in reality despots of Thebes.
Therefore Archias, Leontidas, and Philip, all rich men, and of oligarchical principles, and immoderately ambitious, urged Phoebidas the Spartan, as he was on his way past the city with a considerable force, to surprise the Cadmea, and, banishing the contrary faction, to establish an oligarchy, and by that means subject the city to the supremacy of the Spartans.
The task of Pelopidas and his party was a harder one; for they went to attack Leontidas, a sober and brave man, and, finding his house shut up, for he was already asleep, they knocked for some time without rousing any one.
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