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The Thebans, delighted at having thus happily got rid of their enemies, had made Pelopidas and Epaminondas Boe´o-tarchs, or chiefs of Boeotia, the country of which Thebes was the capital. These two men, knowing well that the Spartans would soon send an army to win back the city, now made great preparations to oppose them.
The Thebans were satisfied with these terms; but I will now recount how, shortly afterwards, Heaven exacted retribution from him for the death of Pelopidas. Thêbê his wife, as we have said before, had been taught by Pelopidas not to fear the outward pomp and body-guard of the tyrant, since she was within all his defences.
This city was always disaffected, and in the absence of Pelopidas in Thessaly, and Epaminondas with a fleet on the Hellespont, some three hundred of the richest citizens undertook to overthrow the existing government.
In the fourth year of the exile, Pelopidas wrote to beg his friend to join in a plot by which some of the banished were to creep into the city, go to a banquet that was to be given to the chief friends of the Spartans disguised as women, kill them, proclaim liberty, raise the citizens, and expel the Spartans.
Pelopidas, the son of Hippoclus, was descended, as likewise Epaminondas was, from an honorable family in Thebes; and, being brought up to opulence, and having a fair estate left him whilst he was young, he made it his business to relieve the good and deserving amongst the poor, that he might show himself lord and not slave of his estate.
I cannot commend the death of either of these great men; the suddenness and strangeness of their ends gives me a feeling rather of pain and distress. Hannibal has my admiration, who, in so many severe conflicts, more than can be reckoned in one day, never received so much as one wound. Yet the anger which provoked Pelopidas to pursue revenge in the heat of fight, may excuse him.
Pelopidas, having received seven wounds in front, fell down upon a heap of slain, friends and enemies together; but Epameinondas, though he thought him desperately hurt, ran forward and stood in defence of his body and arms, risking his life alone against a multitude, determined to die rather than leave Pelopidas lying there.
For the fulfilment of these conditions he gave as hostages his own son Philoxenus and fifty of his companions, whom Pelopidas sent to Thebes, but as he was angry at the desertion of his mercenaries, and learned that their property, wives and children were for the most part placed in Pharsalus, so that by capturing that place he could make them pay the penalty of their crime, he got together a force of Thessalians and came to Pharsalus.
Negotiations between Athens and Persia, the efforts of Corinth and other cities to secure peace, the ambition of Athens to maintain ascendency on the sea, the creation of a Theban navy—these and other events must be passed by. But we can not omit to notice the death of Pelopidas. In a battle which took place between Pelopidas and Alexander, near Pharsalus, the Thessalians were routed.
True it is that the conspiracy contrived by Pelopidas for the liberation of his country, had to encounter every conceivable hindrance, and yet had the happiest end. For Pelopidas had to deal, not with two tyrants only, but with ten; and so far from having their confidence, could not, being an outlaw, even approach them.
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