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Updated: April 30, 2025
Gorgoleon and Theopompus, the polemarchs in command of the Spartans, moved confidently to the attack of the Thebans; and the onset was directed on both sides, with great fury, specially at the persons of the leaders.
The news of the men's death had of course not arrived; the first messenger having left Plataea just when the Thebans entered it, the second just after their defeat and capture; so there was no later news. Thus the Athenians sent orders in ignorance of the facts; and the herald on his arrival found the men slain.
As soon as it was known in the cities, the magistrates, youths, children, and priests, came out to meet the body, and brought trophies, crowns, and suits of golden armor; and, when he was to be interred, the elders of the Thessalians came and begged the Thebans, that they might give the funeral; and one of them said, "Friends, we ask a favor of you, that will prove both an honor and comfort to us in this our great misfortune.
Three months passed. The Greeks heard no news of Alexander or of his army, and fancied that he had been defeated and killed. The Thebans, thinking the right moment had come, suddenly rose up, and said that they would never again submit to the Macedonian yoke, but would stay free. They soon had cause to repent of this rash talk. Alexander was not dead, but had conquered the Thracians completely.
I must say I think there is some excuse, Tychiades, both for your national liars and for the poets. The latter are quite right in throwing in a little mythology: it has a very pleasing effect, and is just the thing to secure the attention of their hearers. On the other hand, the Athenians and the Thebans and the rest are only trying to add to the lustre of their respective cities.
Each party was to restore its conquests, but Athens was to keep Nisaea; her demand for Plataea being met by the Thebans asserting that they had acquired the place not by force or treachery, but by the voluntary adhesion upon agreement of its citizens; and the same, according to the Athenian account, being the history of her acquisition of Nisaea.
After this, he writes that, the rest making to the hill, the Thebans separated themselves from them, lifted up their hands to the barbarian, and coming near, cried with a most true voice, that they had favored the Persians, had given earth and water to the King, that now being forced by necessity they were come to Thermopylae, and that they were innocent of the King's wound.
The devoted youth, on learning that the safety of his country depended on his life, forthwith killed himself before the city gates, thus securing by innocent blood the powerful aid of the god of war. Long and strenuous was the contest that succeeded, each of the heroes fiercely attacking the gate adjudged to him. But the gods were on the side of the Thebans and every assault proved in vain.
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.
In memory of Epaminondas, their greatest citizen and general, the Thebans erected a monument on the battlefield, and engraved his name upon it, with an image of the dragon from whose teeth his ancestors had sprung.
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